A Meeting of Minds
The noble board of trustees laid the groundwork for what would become today's BGMEA University of Fashion & Technology (BUFT) on July 9, 2011, when the group gathered to hold the University's inaugural board meeting and drafted the University's articles of incorporation. This guiding document outlined elements the founders believed would build an enduring legacy for the University: a commitment to offering a rigorous academic program and an ambition to provide opportunities of higher education in all disciplines of knowledge to persons of both sexes on equal terms.
On March 14, 2012, the Ministry of Education of Bangladesh issued the University's official certificate of incorporation in accordance with the Private University Act of 2010 followed by the University Grants Commission (UGC) of Bangladesh's approval on March 20, 2012, marking the formal beginning of the University's life.
The relentless hard work by the Founder Chairman Mr. Muzaffar U. Siddique, along with contributions by the other members of the board of trustees, helped to found the University. Since its establishment, BUFT has been operating very successfully by a nine-member Trustee Board headed by Mr. Muzaffar U. Siddique.
Founder Chairman, Board of Trustees, BGMEA University of Fashion & Technology.
Mr. Siddique, the University's Founder Chairman, envisions a university that is "spectacularly new, yet as solid as the ancient hills" - a modern research university, offering undergraduate and graduate research degrees following North American style curriculum. BUFT and each and every member of it are committed to fulfill Mr. Siddique's dream, and it has already made a considerable progress in its journey towards becoming a national leader in higher education and research. BUFT is an institution of scholars unafraid to cross boundaries, share ideas, and ask difficult questions.
A Singular Focus
President Muzaffar U. Siddique articulated his hope and vision for the BUFT at the first faculty meeting in 2012: "The question before us was how to become one in spirit, not necessarily in opinion."
The University's commitment to answering that question - and many others - continues to guide it today.
As Mr. Siddique said in his inaugural address, "We took the initiative to providing education in 1999 as an Institute with the name of BGMEA Institute of Fashion & Technology. We have turned that small institute into a full-fledged university. If we take ourselves back to the Institute in its early years (since 1999 till 2011), we would find many major differences from what we observe today . . . . And yet, many of us connected to the University feel that we might just as easily have been there - that going back to the University in its early days, or in fact at any time since its inception, we would know unmistakably that we were at the BGMEA University of Fashion & Technology.
Why is this? The University, from its very inception, has been driven by a singular focus on inquiry - with a firm belief in the value of open, rigorous, and intense inquiry and a common understanding that this must be the defining feature of this university. Everything about the University that we recognize as distinctive flows from this commitment."