Staff Reporter
A NEW faculty fellowship at Texas A&M University (TAMU) at College Station, US, has direct ties to the school’s engineering campus half a world away in Qatar’s Education City, TAMU at Qatar.
A $100,000 gift from TAMUQ’s dean emeritus and professor emeritus at College Station, Charles H Bowman (TAMU Class of 1959), and his wife Lynn A Holleran will endow the Holleran-Bowman Faculty Fellowship in Engineering.
Annual recipients will be junior faculty members in the Dwight Look College of Engineering, with preference to those interested in serving at TAMUQ.
“Bowman has been instrumental in the development of our engineering programme in Qatar since its inception, generously sharing his time, expertise and now personal resources to ensure its success,” TAMU vice chancellor, dean of engineering and Harold J Haynes Dean’s chair professor G Kemble Bennett said.
The fellowship would recognise the outstanding teaching, research, service and professional development activities of an assistant or associate professor among the Look College’s 12 departments.
Bowman was petroleum engineering department head from 1997-2001 at the College Station campus. Before that, he spent 36 years in the international oil industry, retiring as chairman and chief executive officer of BP America, at that time the US operating arm of the British Petroleum Company.
“We wanted to do something supporting the Look College’s programme to attract and retain young, high-quality faculty. At the same time, we wanted to assist the Qatar campus,” Bowman said.
He and Holleran previously endowed an International Programmes gift that provides support for scholarships, leadership development programmes and cultural exchanges, including those between students at the Doha and College Station campuses.
Bowman played a significant role in helping to establish TAMUQ. He led the earliest negotiations that created the branch campus, and served as interim dean and chief executive officer when the campus opened in 2003.
He filled those roles again in 2006 prior to the arrival of the current dean and CEO, Mark H Weichold. Bowman continues to serve on the TAMUQ joint advisory board.
Weichold recalled that Bowman has a distinguished record of contributing to Texas A&M that spans almost five decades.
TAMUQ is in its fifth year of operation and celebrated its first graduating class of two students in December 2007.
The campus expects that approximately 30 students will receive degrees in May. The university offers undergraduate degrees in chemical, electrical, mechanical and petroleum engineering at Qatar Foundation’s Education City. |
