By Mahadhir bin Monihuldin
GOMBAK, 22 July 2017: The Kulliyyah of Islamic Revealed Knowledge and Human Sciences (KIRKHS) has reintroduced the Knowledge and Virtue Camp (KVC) to help elevate the Kulliyyah to greater height in research and publications.
Speaking on the purpose of this camp, the organiser of KVC 2017, Dr. Elmira Akhmetova said, “KVC is intended to be a real writing and publishing clinic where our academic staff can learn about the publication process of specific journals and become inspired to write and express themselves well.”
The one-month long camp which started on 14 July was made official following the appointment of former Rector, Prof. Dato’ Sri Dr. Syed Arabi Idid, to the Chair of Ibn Khaldun.
According to Prof. Syed Arabi, the KVC was first established when he was the Rector of IIUM, but was later discontinued after his term ended.
“Now this camp is being brought back exclusively to KIRKHS.
“When I was the Rector, we came up with the idea of KVC for the whole university. After I left, it was not continued, until this year when KIRKHS decided to try it again,” said Prof. Syed Arabi.
He told IIUMToday that this camp is special to this university as no other university in Malaysia has implemented such a programme.
“This camp is unique to our university. No other university has done this. It’s a time when our academicians put aside their lecturing work and move together to start researching and writing,” Prof. Syed said.
The modules involved in this camp, as shared by Dr Elmira, include workshops organised by members of renown academic journals such as Pertanika (UPM), Kemanusiaan (USM), Al-Shajarah (IIUM), Intellectual Discourse (IIUM) and Islam in Asia (IIUM).
The themes of the workshop range from Islamic civilisation to the human sciences, and Islam and the West, and Islamic studies.
Dr. Elmira expressed the hope that the camp will not only help the academicians of IIUM to be better researchers, but also to make them better teachers.
“Teaching is a life long learning process. We cannot be good teachers without continuous learning of something new,” she shared. ***