(3-4 October 2009)
WOU held its inaugural Residential School cum Project Workshop (RSPW) for postgraduate students at the main campus.
The event was a laudable success with some 50 CeMBA students coming from all over the country to Penang to attend the two-day workshop.
(FROM RIGHT) SBA DEAN PROF CHEE KIM LOY, WOU ACTING VICE CHANCELLOR PROF WONG TAT MENG, AND VICE CHANCELLOR TAN SRI EMERITUS PROF GAJARAJ DHANARAJAN.
In his welcome speech, Acting Vice Chancellor Prof Wong Tat Meng congratulated the students for reaching this stage of their postgraduate programme with WOU.
The RSPW, he said, is a norm for any graduate school and aims to provide students with world class learning experiences. “Students develop skills of independent research and decision making that would be valuable in their work,” he elaborated.
The RSPW kicked off with keynote addresses delivered by two eminent captains of industry, Dato’ Tan Bian Ee and Tan Sri Mustafa Mansur.
DATO’ TAN BIAN EE.
Tan was the Chief Operating Officer of Avago Technologies and Worldwide Sales and Global Operations prior to his retirement in February 2009. Speaking on “Corporate Strategy in Turbulent Times: Strategic Intent and Leadership Issues”, Tan drew on his personal experiences in his various leadership positions at Avago, Agilent, Hewlett-Packard and Fairchild Semiconductor.
An interesting point made in his presentation on leadership development is “bold business leaders cultivate an exciting and innovative environment that demands ownership, supports risk-taking and delivers results”.
TAN SRI MUSTAFA PRESENTS HIS SPEECH.
Meanwhile Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers (FMM) president Tan Sri Datuk Mustafa Mansur discussed the economic crisis impact on employment in the manufacturing sector. He pointed out that a lot of industries are not willing to pay good salaries, hence the decision to bring in foreign workers into the country.
Throughout the two-day programme, students had ample opportunity to interact with the speakers and senior academic staff from the university as well as peers from the different industries.
The students attended five workshop sessions that covered specific areas of conducting research such as developing research ideas and topics, developing a research project proposal, constructing research questions and objectives, writing a research project report and the library research process.
DR TEOH AI PING CONDUCTING A WORKSHOP.
The RSPW is a component in the compulsory 6-credit project course to be undertaken by CeMBA students in the final year of their programme.
