|
News Briefs Online The Association Liaison Office for University Cooperation in Development Vol. II ~ No. 5 ~ Sept/Oct 2001 |
|
New
ALO Partnership Awards
Cycle 2001 Higher Education Development Partnerships Special
Initiatives in Ethiopia Awarded Special
Initiative in Macedonia: ALO
Awards 15 New Higher Education Partnerships The Association Liaison Office for University Cooperation in Development (ALO) announces $1.5 million in awards under its 2001 Institutional Partnerships competition. Fifteen lead colleges and universities received the awards for projects with colleges and universities in U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) assisted countries. The collaborations concern USAID sectors including economic growth, agriculture, trade, global health, democracy, conflict, and health. Partnerships address one or more of the strategic objectives of the USAID Missions in the host country. The 15 new partnerships outlined below join ALO's 1998-2000 partnerships, Workforce Development partnerships, and Special Initiatives for an all-time high of 105 active higher education partnerships for development around the world
ALO coordinates the efforts of the nation's six major higher education associations to build their partnership with USAID and to help their member institutions plan and implement development programs with colleges and universities abroad. For more information about ALO and its programs, see the Web site at http://www.aascu.org/alo. For information on other international higher education partnerships, see the International Higher Education Linkages Projects database at http://www.aascu.org/alo/ihelp. The
University of Alabama and the University of Georgia ALO is pleased to announce the awardees of two Special Initiative Partnerships in Ethiopia. The University of Georgia has received a two-year, $97,859 award for its project, "Expanding and Strengthening Journalism Education at Unity College," which will bring together the resources and expertise of UGA's James M. Cox Jr. Center for International Mass Communication Training and Research and Unity College to improve Unity's journalism curriculum. The goal is to help Ethiopia develop an independent and responsible media. The specific objectives of this partnership are to expand the Unity curriculum, teach instructional techniques to Unity faculty members, and provide design and technical support that will allow the journalism faculty to build its own web site. The web site will be used to provide Unity's journalism program a window to the outside world and to offer students an opportunity to develop journalism skills in the context of web-delivered journalism. The University of Alabama and Mekelle University Law Faculty (MULF) have received a two-year, $150,000 award to work on human capacity in the Ethiopian legal sector. This program of cooperation is designed to assist the newly-established MULF to effectively deliver degree, diploma, and continuing education programs and to provide legal research and services to the surrounding community. There are four specific areas in which the partnership will focus: short- and long-term visits by U.S. law lecturers to assist in curriculum development and joint research; visits by UA professors to focus on faculty development, including the development of course syllabi and teaching methods; graduate LL.M. training for MULF instructors at UA to upgrade their skills and knowledge; and the provision and development of paper-based and electronic resources and research capacities at the MULF library. The partnership is designed to take advantage of the long-standing relationship between the UA School of Law and the institutions of legal education in Ethiopia. $2.325
Million Award to Indiana University Consortium ALO has announced its intention to provide a three-year, $2,325,000 partnership grant to an Indiana University-led consortium to support institutional capacity building at the new Southeast Europe University (SEEU) in Tetovo, Macedonia. Known as the “U.S.-Macedonia Linkage Program,” this partnership will draw on the resources and expertise of the Indiana Consortium for International Programs (ICIP), in particular Indiana University-Bloomington (IUB); Ball State University; Butler University; Indiana University-Southeast; and Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis. As the lead consortium institution, IUB will work in close collaboration with SEEU, receiving additional support from the Sabre Foundation in Cambridge, MA. The partnership is part of an overarching multi-million dollar Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe initiative to establish a new private, multi-lingual, multi-cultural university in Tetovo, a predominantly ethnic Albanian community in northwest Macedonia. For its part, ICIP is designing and implementing undergraduate departments - and accompanying administrative structures - in law, business, public administration, education, and computer information science. The overall aim of the partners will be to build and sustain the capacity at SEEU for high-quality teaching, applied research, and community outreach. The hope is that the establishment of SEEU will help to reduce ethnic tensions and foster national unity based on full-fledged participatory citizenship. |