On September 19^th 2010, the Competency Development Council at the University held its first consultative meeting which discussed a number of issues related to the development of the University's graduates' competency. Attendees included the University President, Prof. Rami Hamdallah, Professor Jawad Fatayer, President Assistant for Graduate Affairs and Chair of the Competency Council, as well as members of the Council from the University and local institutions.

 

In the meeting, Prof. Hamdallah welcomed the attendants and hoped that the Council would succeed in its mission which is based mainly on serving students and helping them achieve better experience. The President also emphasized that the University will evaluate graduates through this council and will study the local society's needs in order to offer specializations that would help meet those needs.

 

Professor Fatayer mentioned that the reason and goal behind establishing the Council is to serve graduates and provide them with support, orientation, training and experience which guarantee that they enter the work field fully prepared. He also said that the University cooperates with a number of local civil society institutions with respect to the identification of the features and characteristics that the graduate must have to build his / her competency.

 

Furthermore, Professor Fatayer said that there are several features and skills that graduates must possess if they are to perform properly in the work field. Such skills include emotional intelligence which deals with how a person interacts with others and how he / she responds to certain situations, social intelligence which deals with how graduates perform within their society and how they demonstrate social attitudes, linguistic intelligence which indicates the level of proficiency among graduates regarding the use of language in real life situations, and finally the technological intelligence which highlights the graduates skills in dealing with technology and employ it adequately in his / her work such using computers, internet, email and others.

 

The meeting aimed to address several issues concerning the steps and phases that constitute the competency development process at the University and to organize efforts which would eventually lead to a successful development plan.