IB Faculty Spotlight: Ghada Baz

Written by Rachel Meng

Professor Baz is the lead instructor of Project Management in the IB major. She has been teaching at UCF for eight years and has taught various courses, including Strategic Management Capstone, International Management, and Business Ethics. In addition to UCF, she is the manager of OpenPublic Networks and serves as an advisory board council member. Knights Association of Project Management (KAPM) is a registered student organization (RSO), where she supports as the faculty adviser.

Professor Baz is originally from Egypt and has rich international professional experience. She’s consulted at Ernst & Young (EY) in Cairo, Egypt and Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. She obtained her MBA degree from Georgia State University and is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) and Certified Scrum Master (CSM). She is also pursuing a doctorate at the College of Sciences at UCF with an interest in leadership, organizational culture and climate, diversity, and measurement. 

October’s character strength spotlight is hope, in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness month.

What does hope mean to you?

Hope is expecting the best of yourself, others, and any situations. Hope is believing that the outcome you desire the most is possible. 

Please share an experience when you applied this strength.

Hope has enabled me to remain positive and take on difficult challenges. I am currently enrolled in a graduate degree program to earn a doctorate. The program has been a long and challenging journey, and I still have several years left. Despite the difficulties involved in balancing a rigorous graduate program, a full-time career, and my role as a mother, the hope that the best outcome is attainable motivates me to keep going. 

What is your advice for UCF students about this strength? 

Always have a positive attitude and expect the best. Even when things don’t always work out the way you want, hope makes the journey a lot more enjoyable and encourages you to try harder and more often. There’s always something good waiting right around the corner if you can bring yourself there. 

Positivity and optimism are contagious to people around you, but negativity and pessimism are worse! Be the smile you’d like to see every day and the positive, tranquil energy that you seek. Believe and visualize your hopes and dreams to shape them into reality. 

“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.”

— Martin Luther King, Jr

Go IB!