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Ven. Dr. Dhammasami elected as Executive Secretary of two international associations of Buddhist universities (28 May 2007)
Bangkok. Venerable Dr. Dhammasami has been unanimously elected as the Executive Secretary of the newly formed International Association of Buddhist Universities (IABU) in Bangkok today. The IABU brings together for the first time Buddhist higher institutions from twenty countries to create a common platform for collaboration.
For the last ten months, the venerable has been travelling and working tirelessly to organise a symposium of Buddhist universities as a part of the UN Vesak Day celebrations in Bangkok, for which he has been the secretary of the International Organising Committee.
The symposium was attend by heads of eighty Buddhist universities from Japan, Korea, China, Chinese-Taipei, Mongolia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, India, Nepal, Hungary, UK, USA, Poland, Vietnam, Singapore and Thailand.
"It is an honour to be given this opportunity to serve the world in general and, the Buddhist world in particular, through higher education. I shall do my best to repay your trust." said the Venerable on his election during the Symposium.
As the Executive Secretary, he will run the Secretariat of the IABU, which is based in Bangkok. Being the abbot of a vihara at Oxford, he was asked how he would run the IABU Secretariat in Asia, the Venerable replied: "In this globalised world, we use the latest IT, mainly email, to connect with one another. I will be working from Oxford using the available modern IT tools, including conferencing software, if necessary, to hold a electronic conference. It is cost-effective and time saving at the same time."
However, the IABU Executive Council, which consists of seventeen members, will meet twice a year.
Despite helped formed the IABU, the Venerable believes that the hard work has just begun. "We have got only about half of Buddhist higher institutions in this. We need to do more to reach out to the rest. We simply do not know how many Buddhist universities and colleges there are in the whole world. This is the fist effort to come together. After everybody is in, we will have to focus on areas for collaboration", said the Venerable of the task that lies ahead.
He emphasised that the IABU now offers to the Buddhist world both opportunities and challenges.
Before this, in March this year, the Venerable was the main driving force behind a historic gathering of Theravada Buddhist universities in Myanmar. There the higher Buddhist institution belonging to the Theravada Buddhist tradition from ten countries established a similar forum, forming themselves into a group called Association of Theravada Buddhist Universities. Venerable Dr. Dhammasami was chosen to be the ATBU's Executive Secretary.
Asked how he could run two associations at the same time, he said that the tasks involved are similar. Even the administrative structure and the constitutions are similar. He has been the key architect of those documents. So, it should be manageable, he concluded.
(Source: MCU & OBV)
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