Habib University (HU) ( ur, ) is a

private Private or privates may refer to: Music * " In Private", by Dusty Springfield from the 1990 album ''Reputation'' * Private (band), a Denmark-based band * "Private" (Ryōko Hirosue song), from the 1999 album ''Private'', written and also recorde ...

liberal arts Liberal arts education (from Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as La ...

university A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United Stat ...

located in

Karachi Karachi (; ur, ; ; ) is the most populous city in Pakistan and 12th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 20 million. It is situated at the southern tip of the country along the Arabian Sea coast. It is the former c ...

, Pakistan. Funded by the

House of Habib The House of Habib () is a Pakistani conglomerate company based in Karachi, Pakistan. The group was founded by Habib Esmail in Bombay (British Raj) in 1841. It is a prominent shia Khoja business family in Pakistan.

, the Habib University Foundation was established in 2010, and was chartered in 2012 as an independent university. Based on a 6.3 acres (295,800 sq ft.) campus in Gulistan-e-Jauhar,

, it is a

multi-disciplinary Interdisciplinarity or interdisciplinary studies involves the combination of multiple academic disciplines into one activity (e.g., a research project). It draws knowledge from several other fields like sociology, anthropology, psychology, ec ...

university offering undergraduate degree's in

science Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence ...

engineering Engineering is the use of scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad range of more speciali ...

arts The arts are a very wide range of human practices of creative expression, storytelling and cultural participation. They encompass multiple diverse and plural modes of thinking, doing and being, in an extremely broad range of media. Both ...

humanities Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture. In the Renaissance, the term contrasted with divinity and referred to what is now called classics, the main area of secular study in universities at t ...

and

social sciences Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of so ...

. It has a strong liberal arts focus and requires all its students to take a set of liberal arts courses consisting of sociology, history, philosophy and anthropology.

History

In 2010, the

formed the Habib University Foundation (a not-for-profit organization). The project was launched with a grant of US$40 million. Construction on the campus in Gulistan-e-Jauhar, Karachi began in 2012 and classes began in 201

The university has a joint venture contract with

Texas A&M University Texas A&M University (Texas A&M, A&M, or TAMU) is a public university, public, Land-grant university, land-grant, research university in College Station, Texas. It was founded in 1876 and became the flagship institution of the Texas A&M Unive ...

Qatar Qatar (, ; ar, قطر, Qaṭar ; local vernacular pronunciation: ), officially the State of Qatar,) is a country in Western Asia. It occupies the Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East; it sh ...

for reciprocal sharing of institutional experience and has signed a partnership agreement for the association. HU's first class of undergraduate students began in August 2014. HU Talent Outreach Program (TOPS), launched in 2016, provides selected students a tuition fee waiver for four-year undergraduate program. Wasif Rizvi ( M.Ed,

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

) is the founding President of the University. The university's chief academic officer is Dr. Aamir Hasan (Ph.D., University of Texas, Austin) who serves as Vice President for Academic Affairs (VPAA) and Dean of Faculty.

Campus

The university's campus is located behind the

Jinnah International Airport Jinnah International Airport ( ur, جناح بین الاقوامی ہوائی اڈا) , formerly Drigh Road Airport or Karachi Civil Airport, is Pakistan's busiest international and domestic airport, and handled 7,267,582 passengers in 2017 ...

runway and covers an area of around 6.3 Acres (295,800 sq ft.). The campus is noted for being one of the few

handicapped-accessible Accessibility is the design of products, devices, services, vehicles, or environments so as to be usable by people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design and practice of accessible development ensures both "direct access" (i.e ...

campuses in the city and is a non-residential campus. The university's laboratories are designed and furnished by Research Facilities Design. In 2010 the campus design won the Merit Award for Excellence in Planning for New Campus from the Society for College and University Planning (SCUP). The university's central auditorium covers 25,000 square feet of area, and seats over 300 persons. In addition, the university holds two lecture halls, the Tariq Rafi Lecture Theatre which holds 300 students and the Soorty Lecture Theatre which holds 60 seats. The campus includes several classrooms with not more than 20 seats each. The university also includes an

amphitheatre An amphitheatre (British English) or amphitheater (American English; both ) is an open-air venue used for entertainment, performances, and sports. The term derives from the ancient Greek ('), from ('), meaning "on both sides" or "around" and ...

which covers an area of 4500 square feet. The Habib library covers an area of 21,000 square feet and is a semi-public space and is home to information commons, lounges, and discussion rooms.

Academics

The university incorporates a

liberal arts education Liberal arts education (from Latin "free" and "art or principled practice") is the traditional academic course in Western higher education. ''Liberal arts'' takes the term '' art'' in the sense of a learned skill rather than specifically th ...

with cultural sensitivity within its curriculum. It is mandatory for every student studying there to follow the liberal arts curriculum in all its offered courses. In addition to local regional languages, all students are required to study a liberal arts curriculum comprising sociology, history, philosophy – Western, Eastern and Islamic – and anthropology. The university terms this a "Habib Core Curriculum" based on seven "Forms of Thought". These include: * Historical and Social Thought * Philosophical Thought * Language and Expression * Creative Practice * Formal Reasoning * Quantitative Reasoning * Natural Scientific Method and Analysis The university offers six majors including Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Social Development & Policy, Communication & Design and Comparative Humanities. All classes are modeled after a tutorial system which includes small classes of 12 students. The university has affiliations with

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is conside ...

Pitzer College Pitzer College is a private liberal arts college in Claremont, California. One of the Claremont Colleges, the college has a curricular emphasis on the social sciences, behavioral sciences, international programs, and media studies. Pitzer is k ...

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant un ...

, and

; allowing student's to attend summer sessions at these universities. It has a student to teacher ratio of 12:1, and, as of 2016, has 1,000 full-time students. The university is regarded as among Pakistan's most progressive education institute.

Yohsin Lecture Series

Yohsin Lecture Series is a public lecture series modeled after the public lecture series of the

London School of Economics , mottoeng = To understand the causes of things , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £240.8 million (2021) , budget = £391.1 milli ...

. The Inaugural Yohsin Lecture was delivered by Dr. Munir Fasheh in November 2011. Other prominent speakers have included: the former Dean for

SAIS Sais ( grc, Σάϊς, cop, Ⲥⲁⲓ) was an ancient Egyptian city in the Western Nile Delta on the Canopic branch of the Nile,Mish, Frederick C., Editor in Chief. "Saïs." '' Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary''. 9th ed. Springfield ...

at the

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hemisphere. It consi ...

, Dr. Vali Nasr,

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...

Professo
Deborah K. Fitzgerald
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Reza Aslan and

Noam Chomsky Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American public intellectual: a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky i ...

Dhanani School of Science and Engineering (DSSE) Public Lecture Series

Th
Dhanani School of Science and Engineering (DSSE)
invites professionals of academia to share their ideas on a wide variety of subjects through its Public Lecture Series.

Interdisciplinary Development Research and Action Center (IDRAC)

The IDRAC Center at HU fosters research and action on key development challenges facing Pakistan and the larger South Asian region. The Center hosts a series of activities in the region while serving society and contributing to the social welfare.

Center for Media and Design (CMD)

The Center for Media and Design acts as a hub for talks, symposia, exhibitions, literary readings, and arts such as film, video, music, dance, theater and performance.

Arzu Center

The Center is named after the 18th century poet, linguist and lexicographer,

Siraj-ud-Din Ali Khan Arzu Siraj-ud-Din Ali Khan ( ur, ) (1687-1756), also known by his pen-name Arzu, was a Delhi-based poet, linguist and lexicographer of the Mughal Empire. He used to write mainly in Persian, but he also wrote 127 couplets in Urdu. He was the maternal- ...

. The Arzu Center is linked to HU's School of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences programs and serve to meet the vernacular requirements of the University. The Center's scope of work covers a wide range including language instruction, translation from and into the regional languages.

People

Notable people associated with the university include: * Haziqul Khairi, an eminent jurist who served as

Chief Justice of the Federal Shariat Court The Chief Justice of the Federal Shariat Court of Pakistan heads the Federal Shariat Court of Pakistan. The Chief Justice of the Shariat Court is the second-highest judicial office in the country, after the Chief Justice of Pakistan. The Acting ...

, Member Board of Governors. *

Asif Farrukhi Asif Aslam Farrukhi ( ur, ; 16 September 1959 1 June 2020) was a Pakistani writer, translator, and literary critic active in both Urdu and English. He was also a public health expert and polyglot. He translated books from English into Urdu, ...

(1959-2020) ( MPH,

), Associate Professor.