LAHORE: Chief Minister Sardar Usman Buzdar has approved appointment of Dr Syed Mansoor Sarwar for the post of the vice chancellor of the University of Engineering and Technology (UET), Lahore, on the recommendation of the VC Search Committee.

The committee had given Dr Sarwar more marks than the other two shortlisted candidates.

“The Higher Education Department (HED) is likely to issue the notification of Dr Sarwar’s appointment shortly as the governor has signed on the summary after the CM’s approval,” an official told Dawn.

Unlike his predecessor (Shahbaz Sharif), Mr Buzdar followed the search committee’s recommendation by appointing the candidate who topped the merit list.

The committee had given 90 marks to Dr Sarwar, the former principal of Punjab University College of Information Technology (PUCIT), 88 to Prof Dr Waqar Mahmood, executive director KICS-UET, Lahore, and 87 to Prof Dr Athar Mahboob, VC of Khwaja Fareed University of Engineering and Information Technology, Rahim Yar Khan.

Dr Sarwar earned his MS and PhD degrees in Computer Engineering from Iowa State University, USA, in 1985 and 1988, respectively. He has over 31 years of post-PhD experience of teaching at institutions of higher education in USA, Kuwait, and Pakistan, including 11 years of associate professor at the University of Portland, Portland, Oregon. He also served at LUMS as Professor of Computer Science and head of Computer Science Department for three years from 2001 to 2004.

Dr Sarwar served as the principal of the Punjab University College of Information Technology (PUCIT) for over 12 years and reached superannuation in 2018. He is currently working as VC of the Qarshi University.

Dr Sarwar has also served in various national bodies such as the Higher Education Commission, Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB), National ICT R&D Fund (currently Ignite), and NCEAC.

Dr Sarwar has authored over 40 international papers and six books on UNIX and Linux published in the USA by Addison-Wesley and CRC Press/Taylor & Francis.

Published in Dawn, June 19th, 2019