The KFUPM Rally is an innovative forum to share out-of-the-box ideas and initiatives that can help KFUPM in its transformation and take it to a new platform. It is an opportunity for you to voice your ideas, if accepted, to the University leadership (President, Vice President, Deans, Chairmen) and faculty members in the presence of the University International Advisory Board.

For the past three years, the Rally has resulted in a tremendously successful positive impact on the direction of KFUPM. However, in previous years, participation was limited to the faculty. This year the focus has been shifted to students, our students, as we truly believe that your voices and opinions matter, especially when it comes to the future of KFUPM. The First Students Rally on February 07, 2024 was impressively successful with the presentation of excellent and innovative ideas by students which were highly admired by the University President and leadership. Building on the resounding success of the first and inaugural Students Rally, we are thrilled to announce that the University leadership is eager to extend this momentum and invite you all to participate in the KFUPM Students' 2nd Rally! This is an incredible opportunity for us to come together once again, harness our creativity, and propel KFUPM to even greater heights.

Whether you have a groundbreaking idea in mind or a transformative proposal to enhance student experience or advance our academic programs, your contributions are truly essential. This Rally is your platform to shine, collaborate with your peers, and make a meaningful impact on the KFUPM community and beyond.

How can you participate?

The Rally is a solution-based platform where you can propose new innovative ideas and solutions to pave the way forward in enhancing our excellent performance and future transformation. It is not a complaint session or a venting session.

In order to participate, assemble a team with fellow students and create a proposal (in English) to tackle some of the issues covered here. The proposals should address enhancements in the main themes below and present the required changes needed by the University leadership. Outcomes are expected to be innovative, achievable, and impactful. Although proposals may address current problems, they will ideally address future opportunities.

Main Themes

1. Assessment that cultivates active minds

Student assessment is a recurring issue in all universities. A major challenge is how to make the assessment more engaging and of reasonable dosage (i.e. not excessive) to expose students to more learning opportunities that promote critical thinking and lifelong learning, and cultivate active minds – whilst at the same time be able identify the various levels of students’ performance and be fair in assessing them. What types of assessments – and their dosages – are more effective and enriching for students' learning experience?

2. How to fairly recognize students’ performance?

A student’s GPA is intended to reflect the student’s achievement. It holds several important implications for students, including the competition for job market opportunities. Do you feel that the current GPA and grading system reflect the actual student performance and achievement? If not, what are the best ways to recognize actual students’ performance? What are benchmarks of top universities and their average GPA? How can KFUPM be consistent with them whilst not lowering its teaching standards and caliber of graduates? This issue is invariably also linked to the previous one, but has a different emphasis.

3. How to vacate space in the student learning journey for innovative thinking and societal engagement?

University life is meant to shape the student’s thinking and sharpen it towards being a lateral thinker and productive individual. Between several academic commitments and their assessments, the student’s schedule can get busy, leaving no room to think of innovative ideas beyond the scope of the course. What are the strategies to keep the students engaged in their coursework, whilst still vacating enough space for innovative thinking and societal engagement? How can we graduate leaders with broad scientific and engineering skills and not just narrow thinkers or bookworms?

4. How to reward students’ accomplishments in different activities?

Students are giving to the university in many different ways including through the development of materials, initiatives, and active engagement in students’ communities, among other contributions. While these activities are self-rewarding in that they develop a variety of skills such as leadership, communication, and teamwork, the university leadership believes that the accomplishment of these activities need to be highlighted and rewarded in some way to inspire all students to strive for excellence and contribute to the university community. What are the best ways for identifying students with impactful achievements across diverse domains, including leadership roles, community service, and extracurricular activities? What could be the best ways to reward them?

5. Global experience for every student.

The University provides many opportunities for students to have a global experience. These vary between purely academic (student exchange program), skills (international summer training or internship), research (conference attendance), and scientific/cultural (international visits). These experiences have a tremendous positive impact on the student. The University aims to have every student go through at least one global experience. How can the University ensure the sustainability of a global experience for every student with minimum financial burden? Suggest new programs to enrich the students’ global experience and novel ways of funding them. KFUPM students represent a very attractive customer base to the banks, as the vast majority of them are career-successful and can quickly become financially capable. Can you design a program that would allow the students to get bank loans to fund their international exposure that can be paid later once employed? Does this make sense in order for every student to have a global experience? Ideally this would be a direct arrangement with the banks. .

6. Undergraduate Research Experience.

Undergraduate research experience holds significant importance for students across various disciplines. It exposes students to the state-of-the-art developments in their disciplines and deep understanding of the subject as well as equipping them with research methodologies and tools. Currently, the University provides a mix of opportunities for students to nurture their research experience. The aim is to have every student go through undergraduate research experience, with varying dosages. Do you feel that the current research opportunities at KFUPM are enough to actively engage undergraduate students in research? What are the other opportunities the University can offer for students to get them actively engaged in innovative research?

7. Students Clubs

Student clubs play a major role in the overall university experience for students. They contribute to the personal, academic, and professional development of students. How can we enhance the student club engagement and effectiveness? Explore strategies to actively involve more students and offer enriching activities for a better overall experience.

8. How to make student self-sufficient

A self-sufficient student has the ability to independently navigate their way, make informed decisions, and handle challenges with a degree of independence and confidence. Such students would select and execute their projects, get references, find summer training opportunities, travel abroad, contact universities and companies, develop yearbooks and materials, set up small companies, etc. – all by themselves, without constant handholding from the faculty or the University at large. This way they graduate as effective leaders and not mere followers, and become successful in the workplace. What strategies and policies can the University roll out to make the students more self-sufficient?

General Guidelines:

• Each team should have a minimum of three and a maximum of five undergraduate students. A team can also have one faculty member, but the work must be led and presented by the students.
• Teams may select one or more topics from the Main Themes above. You may increase your chances of being selected to present if you choose more than one topic, and if your topic is not widely addressed by others. Please present a separate proposal for each topic selected.
• It is preferred that teams are diverse and interdisciplinary.
• Proposal selection will be based on:
  • Innovation: What is the novelty of the idea? Is it a modification of an existing practice or a completely new one?
  • Application: One can think of many ideas if no reasonable boundaries are considered. Can the idea be reasonably implemented?
  • Clarity: Is the idea or solution well organized with a clear solution and structure?
  • Impact: How much of an impact does the proposed idea have on the betterment of the University?

Important Notes

• The proposal should be written in English
• The proposals are for the selection of presenting teams only. After selection, the team will work on the presentation and will present it in the Rally.
• As mentioned above, the Rally is not a venue to vent frustration, but to present innovative proposals. Identifying problems is easy – developing solutions is more difficult.

Important Deadlines

• Teams should submit their proposals by April 29 (Mon – week 13), 2024, 4:00 PM.
• Selected teams will be notified by May 02 (Thu – Week 13), 2024.
• Selected teams are expected to present their ideas in the Rally, in-person, on May 8 (Wed - week 14), 2024.

Contacts for More Information:

If you have any questions, please contact on WhatsApp +966138601199