university administration

Office of the vice chancellor

Dr. Fahima Aziz, Vice Chancellor

Fahima Aziz is the Vice Chancellor of the Asian University for Women. She was a professor in economics and has served as the Alkire Endowed Chair in International Business and Economics at Hamline University in St Paul, Minnesota.  Aziz earned a BA from Mount Holyoke, an MS from the University of Massachusetts, and a PhD from the University of Minnesota, all in economics.

Aziz chaired the Department of Management and Economics for ten years and concurrently chaired the Environmental Studies Program for seven years at Hamline. Her research interests include micro-finance, poverty and income inequality, gender and race in the labor market and, more recently, the scholarship of teaching and learning. Aziz is deeply interested in examining how students learn and the importance of instilling metacognitive skills in students for enhancing learning.  Aziz has numerous publications and presentations on her areas of research.  She has earned many awards at Hamline, including the Burton and Ruth Grimes Outstanding Teaching Award and the John Wesley Trustee Award for her outstanding leadership and contributions as a faculty.

Aziz has lectured at the University of Modena in Italy and at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, China.  Aziz was awarded the prestigious Fellowship for Leadership in Higher Education from the American Council for Education, Washington D.C. In Minnesota, she served on the Board of Directors of Park Midway Bank, St.Paul, Minnesota and now serves on the Board of Trustees at Saint Paul Academy and Summit School. Aziz has been very active in and is the current President of the Minnesota Economic Association.

Dr. Jinnie Garrett, Dean of Faculty

As Dean of Faculty, Dr. Jinnie Garrett oversees AUW’s undergraduate programmes. She will also plan and direct the development of the laboratories and other learning and research resources in support of the teaching programmes in biological sciences and public health. 

Dr. Garrett received an M.Sc. in Chemistry from Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario in Canada and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Biophysics from Texas A & M University, College Station, Texas in the United States. After completing post-doctoral research in molecular genetics at the California Institute of Technology, in Pasadena, California, USA, she moved to Hamilton College in New York where she has served as a member of the Department of Biology since 1986. She conducts research in yeast molecular genetics and also studies the microbial composition of samples from distinct environments using metagenomics. She has published over 20 scientific articles in leading journals and has been the recipient of numerous research grants from private foundations as well as the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation.  Dr. Garrett has extensive interests in genetics education and in the application of genetics in society. She has published papers about expanding the range of genetics education to include ethical, legal, and social applications of the science as well as focused articles on communicating science. She is currently co-editing a 2-volume set on women's cancers for Praeger Publishing. She is a member of numerous professional societies including American Women in Science (Education Committee), Genetics Society of America, Genetics and Society Institute, International Society for the Study of the History, and Philosophy and Social Studies of Biology. At Hamilton College, she has served as the Director of the Social Justice Project and as a mentor to students from the Posse Foundation, both organizations that are committed to ensuring equitable access to higher education.

Dr. Garrett joined AUW on July 1 of this year on leave from Hamilton.  Her daughter Corinne will also enroll at AUW as a visiting freshman.

Fatema Haque, Dean of Students

Fatema Haque is the Dean of Students at AUW. She joined AUW in 2009 as an Access Academy teacher, and later began her role as Dean of Students in 2011. She is originally from Sylhet, Bangladesh. She studied Classical Civilization and Asian Languages & Cultures at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Christa Thorpe, Director of Access Academy

Christa Thorpe is beginning her second year as Director of Access Academy, and has been teaching Access Academy core English courses since 2010. Ms. Thorpe received her M.A. in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages from Wheaton College, Illinois, where she also completed her B.A. in Anthropology with a minor in Music. She taught ESL literacy to adult refugees through a non-profit organization in the Chicago suburbs. As an undergraduate student, she studied sustainable development in Thailand, where she also held an internship with an exiled Burmese newspaper, writing and editing publications focused on the human rights of Shan refugees. She has studied Spanish, Thai, and speaks fluent Bengali.

                                                                                                      Updated on 31 January 2013