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Perpetuating a brother’s memory

Economics scholarship honours the late Professor Jaleel Ahmad
July 6, 2015
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By Louise Morgan


Brotherly bonds and a family tradition of striving for higher learning are behind a generous gift from Aqueil Ahmad, currently an adjunct professor in sociology at Elon University in Elon, N.C. He recently established a scholarship in memory of his eldest brother, the late Jaleel Ahmad, a professor emeritus in Concordia’s Department of Economics.

Jaleel Ahmad The late Jaleel Ahmad, professor emeritus in Concordia’s Department of Economics | Photo courtesy: Elizabeth Henrik

Growing up in a middle-class family in British India, the Ahmads’ father was a police officer whose family responsibilities prevented his own pursuit of higher education — so he strongly encouraged and made it possible for his sons to go to college, sometimes under difficult economic and political circumstances following India’s independence and partition in 1947.

“It was our father’s push that sent us all to college, where we achieved the highest academic degrees,” says Aqueil Ahmad. The three brothers earned PhDs, becoming an economist, a microbiologist and a psychologist, respectively.

Their higher education in the United States was supported through scholarships and fellowships, so Aqueil Ahmad fully understands the value of financial awards to graduate and postgraduate students.

He chose to designate the Professor Jaleel Ahmad Scholarship endowment for students in the Department of Economics at Concordia who share his brother’s passions: international economics, international trade and development, and East-West economic relations.

Aqueil Ahmad Aqueil Ahmad established a scholarship in memory of his late brother Jaleel. | Photo credit: Louise Morgan

The late professor Ahmad received his PhD at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He briefly taught at Harvard and McGill universities before taking a tenured position at Concordia, where he spent over 40 years, a number of them as graduate program director.

“It feels good to give back to the institution to which my brother devoted so much of his life,” says Aqueil Ahmad. “Concordia was good to him and treated him well. He had many wonderful friends there, including his long-time friend, psychologist Elizabeth Henrik, and colleagues in the Department of Economics, such as Balbir Sahni, Greg LeBlanc and others.

“Jaleel was a very intelligent man, well informed, thoughtful and compassionate. He was deeply committed to international peace and economic development — with strong opinions on these and other local and world issues.”

Jaleel Ahmad travelled extensively as a visiting scholar and consultant at the East-West Center, the World Bank, UNCTAD and several other international agencies.

“As an avid reader and scholar, he had an honest love of knowledge and its promotion through an extensive record of publications. And above all, he really loved his students,” says his brother.

Aqueil Ahmad would like the scholarship’s recipients to know who Jaleel was as an academic and a human being and expects them to learn as much as they can in the fields that Jaleel had promoted and loved.



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