Professor-at-Large @ XCHCS-XUB
The professor at large (PAL) is an eminent scholar and/or public intellectual with a wide range of experience, covering the classroom and the community.
PAL@XCHCS will be associated with the Centre for a period of 5 years. During this period, it is expected that they will interact online and/or onsite with the students and teachers of XUB in general and XCHCS in particular to promote the cause of the XCHCS.
They will also help nurture the growth of the Centre into a global centre for Compassion Studies. This may include mentoring, monograph publication, building partnership and co-creator platforms, and introduction of innovative programmes and projects.
Their involvement is expected to enliven the intellectual, cultural and public life of XCHCS and XUB.
Anwar Fazal
Anwar Fazal is the founder and director of The Right Livelihood College, an innovative platform begun in 2009 that brings together some 160 winners of The Right Livelihood Award from over 60 countries into a light, participatory, pioneering and unique worldwide University – Changemakers collaboration. The Global Secretariat of the College is at the University of Bonn, Germany with branch campuses based at Lund University, Sweden, Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia and the University of Harcourt, Nigeria, University of California in Santa Cruz, USA, University Austral, Chile, University of Cordoba, Argentina, and the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, India. He has served as a Professor at the Centre for Policy Research and International Studies (CenPRIS) at the Science University of Malaysia (USM). He also serves as Advisor at the Centre for Dialogue, Wawasan Open University (WOU) in Penang.
Anwar is trained in Economics and Education and has been over the last 55 years, a catalyst, a multiplier and accelerator of ideas and social movements, with a passion for pioneering local and global citizen’s networks on public interest issues affecting peace – peace with oneself, peace with others and peace with the environment. He is founder and key player in over a dozen local and global citizens’ networks – including the Transparency International Malaysia, Pesticide Action Network (PAN), World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action (WABA), Health Action International (HAI), the Malaysian Interfaith Network and the Penang Gandhi Peace Centre (PGPC). He was President of several worldwide organisations including the International Organisation of Consumers Unions (IOCU), The Hague, Netherlands and Environment Liaison Centre International, Nairobi, Kenya. He also initiated the idea of several popular mobilization days – World Consumer Rights Day (March 15), World Wetlands Day (February 1st), World Breastfeeding Week (1-7 August) and World Migrants Day (18th December).
For his work, Anwar has received the Right Livelihood Award (popularly known as the “Alternative Nobel Prize”), the United Nations Environment Programme Global 500 honour, Mother Earth Hall of Fame and the Gandhi-King-Ikeda Community Builders Peace Award. He has received Honorary Doctorates in Law and Philosophy from the National University of Malaya (UM) and the Science University of Malaysia (USM).
Avijit Pathak
Avijit Pathak (Pathak) is Professor of Sociology at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, India. He is primarily interested in modernity and social theory, and Indian social thought and critical pedagogy. His recent publications include Modernity, Globalization and Identity, The Chaotic Order and Ten Lectures on Education. Apart from teaching and research, he contributes regularly to the leading newspapers and magazines on issues relating to politics, culture and education.
José M. de Mesa
Jose de Mesa (Joe) is presently University Fellow, De La Salle University (Manila, Philippines), Professor of Systematic Theology, Inter-Congregational Theological Center and Institute for Formation and Religious Studies (Quezon City, Philippines).
In 1991 he received the Gawad ng Pagkilala from the National Commission on Languages of the Philippine government (Linangan ng Mga Wika sa Pilipinas) for his efforts to promote the Filipino language through Filipinisation of theology. And in 2000, he was named by the Missionswissenchaftliches Institut Missio in Aachen, Germany as among the contemporary theologians in the world who have contributed significantly to the development of theology. His academic career includes deanship at Maryhill School of Theology, a resident professorship at the East Asian Pastoral Institute (Manila), and a full professorship at De La Salle University. He also served as the Visiting Luzbetak professor of Mission and Culture at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago from 2003-2013. He has consistently striven to articulate a Filipino theology and has also explored the reality of compassion.
Dzulkifli Abdul Razak
Dzulkifli Abdul Razak is the Immediate Past President International Association of Universities (IAU), based at UNESCO, Paris. He served as the IAU 14th President from 2012 to 2016.
Currently, he is the Chairperson, Board of Directors, Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia (USIM) after being the 1stholder of Leadership Chair and the Principal Fellow in USIM from 2014-2016. He is also an Honorary Professor atUniversity of Nottingham since 2014. He also chairs the Steering Council of the Right Livelihood College Global Secretariat based in University of Bonn, Germany. Of late he has been appointed to the Advisory Board of Global Leadership Initiative, University of Tokyo.
Dzul was awarded the 2017 Gilbert Medal for long-term commitment toward internationalisation, and education for sustainable development based on the concept of “sejahtera” as a public good. He is distinctively recognised for his willingness to challenge the current knowledge system and offer alternative views on education. He is the 1st recipient from Asia, and 7th internationally according to the sponsor Universitas 21 – a consortium of renown universities from 16 countries.
In August 2017, he has received the 2017 Asia HRD Contribution to Society Award as a recognition for people development in the academic world.
He had served as the 5th Vice-Chancellor of USM from 2000-2011; and the World Health Organisation (WHO) Expert Advisory Panel on Drug Policy and Management (1995-2010); and WHO Scientific Committee of Tobacco Product Regulation (2004-2006).
Dzul is Fellow, Academy of Sciences Malaysia (FASc), the World Academy of Art and Science (FWAAS) andMalaysian Institute of Malaysia (FMIM). He is also Honorary Lifetime member of Asian Academy of Management.More recently, Fellow of World Academy of Islamic Managemeny. He received a number of Honorary Doctorates from various international universities.
He writes a weekly column since 1995 for various Malaysia dailies, latest the Sun beginning from 2015, available at www.thesundaily.my/news/columns/myview
Augustine Loorthusamy
Augustine Loorthusamy (Augy) holds a master’s degree in Mass Communication from the University of Leicester, UK, and has more than 30 years’ experience and expertise in the field of social communications. Augy is a visiting lecturer in communications for religious institutions, NGO’s and seminaries in Fiji, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Thailand, Sri Lanka and Vietnam.
He is the founder director of the Department of Communication of the Asian Social Institute (ASI) in Manila, and held that position from 1977 – 1997. Augy is also founder member of the Asian Communication Network (ACN), based in Bangkok. This network conducts communication training for bishops, priests, lay leaders, seminary professors, seminarians and inter-faith groups. An international speaker on the art of public speaking, Augy is the author of Talking Straight, a guidebook on effective public speaking.
Knighted by the Vatican, Sir Augustine Loorthusamy is the President Emeritus of SIGNIS, the World Catholic Association for Communication, headquartered in Brussels, Belgium.
Surichai Wun’gaeo (Wankaeo)
Professor of Sociology, Chulalongkorn University and Director, Chulalongkorn University Center for Peace and Conflict Studies and Emeritus Professor, Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand since July 2012.
Prof. Surichai has a wide range of academic experience. He is advisor, the working group on Legal, Economic and Social Measures for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), member, sub-committee to monitor and drive the implementation of spatial government policy, member, National Committee for UNESCO (for Social Sciences), chairperson, Thailand – UNESCO – MOST Committee, chairperson of the executive board, FOCUS on the Global South, member and secretary, National Research Council of Thailand Sociology Committee, 2007- 2015, chairperson, Labor Rights Promotion Network Foundation, chairperson, Ecological Alert and Recovery Thailand (EARTH) Foundation, member, National Health Commission ( 2012-15, 2016 to the present).
Professionally, he has served many institutions and associations in different capacities: President, Asian Rural Sociology Association (ARSA: 2004- 2010), Executive Committee member and Director of Thailand and CLMV countries, Deputy Director for Research, Institute of Asian Studies, Director, Chulalongkorn University, Social Research Institute, Executive Board, Social Science Association of Thailand, Deputy Dean for Research Affairs, Faculty of Political Science, Founding Director, Master of Arts in International Development Studies, International Graduate Studies Program, Faculty of Political Science (2001).
Prof. Surichai has been visiting professor to many universities in Asia, Europe and the US. He also has many publications to his credit.
Victor Karunan
Victor Karunan has worked 16 years with UNICEF, as Regional Advisor on Participation and Partnerships at UNICEF Regional Office in Bangkok, Chief of Adolescent Development and Participation in UNICEF Headquarters in New York and as Deputy Representative and Senior Social Policy Specialist in UNICEF Malaysia. He was the Regional Development Advisor for Save the Children-UK at the Regional Office for Southeast Asia and the Pacific in Bangkok. He has over 35 years of professional experience in over 40 countries in both the industrialized and developing countries, with special focus on South and Southeast Asia and the Pacific.
His work relates to supporting Governments, United Nations agencies, International Development organisations, NGOs and Civil society and Private/Corporate sector in Child Rights and Child Development, Results-based Management, Social Policy, Public Finance Management, Adolescent Participation and Development, Policy Advocacy, Participatory Research, Training and Capacity Development.
He has worked as a Development Evaluation Consultant for European donor agencies and has conducted research, evaluations and training programmes among community organizations and NGOs in over 15 countries in South and Southeast Asia. He is a founding member of the Focus on the Global South – a policy research programme of the Chulalongkorn University Social Research Institute in Bangkok.
Victor is currently Senior Visiting Lecturer in the M.A. and Ph.D programmes in International Development Studies at Chulalongkorn University; M.A. and Ph.D in Human Rights, Democratization and Peace Studies at Mahidol University; and B.A. in Social Policy at Thammasat University in Bangkok.
He has also taught Child Rights and Development, Human Rights in Asia, Asian Studies, Development Studies and Public Policy at the Asian Social Institute in Manila, the Philippines, the Institute of Social Studies, The Netherlands, SIPA-Colombia University and New York City University Brooklyn College, and Nottingham University and HELP University in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Victor’s current international consultancy affiliations include: Senior Associate, Social Policy and Social Protection at the Social Policy Research Institute (SPRI) Belgium <www.spriglobal.org>; Senior Development and Public Management Specialist, Institute for Development in Economics and Administration (IDEA International) Canada <www.idea-international.org>; and Senior Fellow, Institute for Child Rights and Development (IICRD) Canada <www.iicrd.org>. Victor Karunan is currently based in Bangkok, Thailand.
Victor holds a M.A. in Sociology from Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi and a Ph.D. in the Social Sciences from the University of Nijmegen in the Netherlands.
Felix Wilfred
He is the Director of Asian Centre for Cross-Cultural Studies, Chennai. After schooling in India, he did all his higher studies in Italy and France. As a student, he was a gold-medalist. He was Chairperson of the School of Philosophy and Religious Thought at the University of Madras, and served also as President of the Faculty of Arts. He was a member of the research board of the University, and was instrumental in developing methodology curriculum for Ph.D. students in the faculty of Arts. He has successfully guided more than thirty Ph.D. students, and about sixty M.Phil. students.
He served as a member of the Statutory Ethical Committee of the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. He was ICCR professor, and on deputation by the government of India, served as the first holder of the Chair in Indian Studies at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland. He has been visiting professor at the University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands, Universities of Frankfurt and Munster, Germany; Boston College, USA, Ateneo de Manila University, The Philippines, and Fudan University, Shanghai, China. Besides English, he has lectured in French, Italian, German and Spanish, and his writings have appeared also in these languages.