Flags are flying at half-staff at Fleming College‘s campuses to honour the victims of Wednesday’s Tehran plane crash, including a part-time faculty member and his family.
In a post on social media, Fleming College said Dr. Razgar Rahimi was a part-time faculty member and was involved in research projects with the college based in Peterborough, Ont.
Rahimi, his spouse Farideh Gholami and their three-year-old son, Jiwan were among the 176 passengers who lost their lives on board Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752. Iran denies Western allegations that one of its own missiles downed the jetliner.
Rahimi, 39, a resident of Stouffville, Ont., was also a seasonal instructor at Ontario Tech University in Oshawa and at the School of Engineering Technology and Applied Science at Centennial College in Toronto.
“We offer our condolences to the family and friends of Dr. Rahimi and we share our loss along with all those at colleges and universities across Canada who have been impacted by the crash of flight 752,” the college stated.
The college says flags at all its campuses — Peterborough, Cobourg, Lindsay, Haliburton and Oshawa – have been lowered to half-staff to “honour all the victims of this tragic event.”
The Ontario Public Service of Employees (OPSEU) stated Rahimi was a member of Local 558 and a partial-load professor who had received a doctorate in electrical and computer engineering in 2018 from the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, where he was also a sessional lecturer.
“Dr. Rahimi had a reputation for excellence in the fields of applied electricity, signals and communications, and programming languages, while his warm and engaging manner endeared him to colleagues and students,” an OPSEU statement read. “Dr. Rahimi’s passion for his fields of expertise was exceeded only by his love for his family. He will be terribly missed by his wider family, his many friends, and of course all who knew him at Centennial College.”