A standing-room only crowd packed a large faculty of economics lecture
theater at Chulalongkorn University on November 25 to hear AIT
President Prof. Said Irandoust, School Deans, Vice Presidents and other
senior administration officials explain aspects of the flood that
devastated AIT on October 21 and to pose questions to the
administration regarding what lies next for the Institute’s students,
faculty and staff.
The town hall-style event was the first of its kind in the Institute’s
history. The Institute Forum came on the heels of official support from
the Board of Trustees of the Asian Institute of Technology on November
22 for AIT’s plan to implement a “temporary and partial relocation” of
students to two temporary campuses located in the vicinity of Hua Hin,
Thailand.
President Irandoust began by showing a video called “AIT Under Water:
AIT Will Rise Again” depicting the damage to the campus. He elaborated
in-depth on all aspects of AIT’s efforts to respond to the flood and to
recover its overall operations. The president also made public the
details of his recent presentation to the Board.
The over three-hour meeting was marked by lively and engaging question
and answer interactions between members of the community and the
administration. Participants expressed concern about the present state
of AIT and its future.
A number of participants posed questions about AIT’s work to pump
water from the campus and its cleaning, recovery and rehabilitation
plans. Many wanted to know when AIT would return to its home campus.
President Irandoust was emphatic that this would occur when “AIT is
safe and livable”, and not before.
The Deans of AIT’s three schools confirmed that all academic classes
would resume on December 6 at Stamford International University (SIU)
and Silipakorn University, Petchaburi Information Technology (IT)
Campus.
Class-taking students posed a number of questions to the
administration on details of their pending move to these universities
in Hua Hin and Cha-am. Accommodations, costs, comfort levels,
logistics, and study facilities were among the students’ concerns.
Various off campus options available to students conducting research
were also outlined by their respective Deans.
Given the enormous interest from the AIT Community, the forum was
streamed live online over the internet for people to attend remotely.
In the interests of full transparency, the entire AIT Institute Forum
held on November 25, 2011 was videotaped in its entirety, and an
unedited video can be viewed by visiting the link below.
AIT Institute Forum: AIT Flood Disaster
Chulalongkorn University
25 November 2011
The AIT Institute Forum video link can be viewed at: http://www.asdu.ait.ac.th/aitforum/
Please click on the links below to view the video:
1.
Introduction and Flood Situation Video (10 minutes)
2.
President Presentation on the Flood (25 minutes)
3.
President Presentation to the Board (18 minutes)
4.
Recovery and Rehabilitation Plan (39 minutes)
5.
Question and Answer Part 1 (57 minutes)
6.
Question and Answer Part 2 (1 hour & 9 minutes)
Note: The files are in WMV Pocket PC (320x240, 15fps) format.
Please make sure to have a compatible player such as MS Windows Media
Player to view the video.
Prof. Said Irandoust addressing the
Institute Forum.