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Walailak University led by the Center for International Affairs (CIA) organizes an open forum "President Meeting with International Lecturers" for experience sharing and discussion for the university’s improvement. 

    The Center for International Affairs (CIA), Walailak University, organizes a get-together between the Walailak University executive team led by Prof. Dr. Sombat Thamrongthanyawong, Acting President of Walailak University, accompanied by Ass. Prof. Dr. Patnarin Supakorn, Acting Director of the CIA and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Thanongsak Imjai, Acting director for the Institute of Research and Innovation (IRI), together with CIA staff members at Chorpradu conference room, Administration Building, Walailak University Hospital on August 24, 2022. 

    The event  serves as an informal open forum in which international faculties members from 7 Schools and 4 colleges affiliated with Walailak University have an opportunity to share and reflect on their experience and challenges faced in their professional settings, especially regarding teaching and learning management and research. On this occasion, Prof. Sombat Thamrongthanyawong opened the event by stating the university’s proactive development policy yielding constructions and renovations of facilities, both in teaching and learning and other aspects namely healthcare and community services as testified, by completion of the Walailak University Hospital, On campus facilities for students and the Bota Sky Tower.

   More importantly, President Sombat enunciated Walailak University’s direction toward becoming a world ranking university through generation of academic publications and internationalization of teaching and learning through recruitment of international lecturers specializing in various fields and promotion of use of English as an instructional language. 

    “70% percent of WU workforce is our international faculty members whom we have entrusted with the mission to teach and also conduct studies in their fields of expertise. Also, we continue to recruit more international lecturers to meet the demands of increasing numbers of students, setting an astonishing admission record at over 3,500 this year,” said President Sombat before adding about research publication policy in compliance with Walailak University being categorized as the Frontier Research university. 

    “We support our lecturers to promote quality of the academic publication measuring up to the recognized standard of Scopus Q1 and Q2 journals. This year alone, the publication record has already reached 607, all published in Scopus Q1 and Q2 journals. In support of the publications by WU international lecturers, all regulations detailing this matters are translated into English and ensured its updates to assist them in planning for publications and submission for academic titles as well. In addition, next year, the university is announcing a publication fee funding support amounting to 60,000 THB for those succeeding in having works published in the Scopus Q1 journals with 90 percentile or more,” added Prof. Dr. Sombat. 

    After the president’ speech, the meeting proceeded with a session in which international lecturer did a brief self-introduction along with a welcome of Mr. Alexander Lee, US government funded fellow joining WU on a 10-month English teaching development program as a visiting fellow. Following were representatives from School of Language and General Education (SOLGEN) sharing challenges and suggestions to improve English teaching management, especially when there are more students enrolling and this upward admission trends does seem to stop ceasing. In this regard, President Sombat acknowledged the challenges and assigned responsible parties to urgently seek solutions and take the discussion further in the school. 

    The sharing session was followed by Dr. Amit Jaisi, Lecturer from the School of Pharmacy, giving a presentation on successful in submission for research grant applications. Dr. Jaisi talked about four research fund support units namely National Research Office (NRCT), National Innovation Agency (NIA), Agricultural Research Development Agency, Public Organization (ARDA) and Public Health Systems Research Institute (PMUA). He also elaborated further on strategies to expedite and ensure funding application approval by the research’s decisiveness on various matters including specific purposes of the grant requests, timely actions, grant agencies most corresponding with the study’s aims as well as the language challenge which non-Thai applicants have to prepare for. 

    The meeting concluded with a Q&A session for Dr. Amit to give advice to those applying for research grants, followed by a group photo. Walailak University is capitalizing on internationalization through policies institutionalizing 60% use of English in 3rd year student programs and 25% in 2nd year student programs. 
 

Photo by Chonthicha Limpiti 

News by Nootchanat Sukkaew, Division of Corporate Communication