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Partnerships Update
As the May News Briefs went to press...
• The FY 2000 RFP for Institutional Partnerships
in Higher Education for International Development, released on February
16, closed March 31. The peer review process is underway, and preliminary
selection of awardees will be announced later.
• A special solicitation for Rwanda partnerships was
released April 20 (see story p.1).—
ALO
Announces Special Rwanda Solicitation
The Association
Liaison Office for University Cooperation in Development (ALO) released a
Special Request for Proposals for Human Resource Development in the
Rwandan Agriculture Sector on April 20, 2000.
USAID/Rwanda seeks to support a linkage between a U.S. higher education
institution and the Université Nationale du Rwanda (UNR) for the purpose
of addressing its objective of "improved national human resource
capacity in the agricultural sector, including trained professionals in
field-driven, participatory research and outreach to farmers."
The subagreement will cover a two-year period from on or about
September 30, 2000, to September 30, 2002. It is expected that the
subagreement may be extended one year, to September 30, 2003.
Pending the expected extension of ALO’s Cooperative Agreement with
USAID and pending the expected obligation of USAID funds for FY2000 and
FY2001, the amount of the award will be up to $2,900,000.
The announcement is in PDF format, viewable by Adobe Acrobat Reader, on
the ALO Web site.—
Multimillion
Dollar Effort for Higher Education in Africa
Four foundations
have come together to sponsor a $100-million, five-year program t o
support higher education in sub-Saharan Africa.
The groups involved are the Carnegie Corporation of New
York and the Rockefeller, Ford, and John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur
Foundations.
The initiative supports efforts by leaders of African
universities and academic associations to expand and improve the education
of the next generation of African leaders in fields necessary for regional
development.
"While the challenges facing African countries are
daunting, Africans determined to address them are increasingly focused on
the crucial task of strengthening their universities. They recognize that
their societies need a new generation of well-educated leaders trained in
many fields, and that to develop them, their higher education institutions
must expand and diversify," said Vartan Gregorian, president of
Carnegie Corporation.
Under the partnership, each foundation will provide
support for higher education institutions in the way that it chooses and in
the country or countries in which it has traditionally focused.
While the nature of the activities to be supported will
vary, an important potential element of the initiative will be establishing
regional and inter-country education leadership links. Support may also be
provided to foster the growth of continent-wide learning networks and
opportunities to collaborate in selected fields.
Planning grants have been made to some institutions where
work already underway reflects the spirit of the partnership. Makerere
University in Uganda, for example, is undertaking a strategic plan
concerning both functioning and financing of the university as well as
capacity building for the decentralization process underway in Uganda.
The foundation leaders said this new partnership can only
be a small part of the platform of support upon which substantial and
long-term gains can be made by Africa’s higher education institutions.
They will work together to encourage other organizations to make African
higher education an important part of their funding strategies.
See http://www.rockfound.org/frameset.html
for details.—
Institutional Partnerships on the Internet
Several Institutional
Partnerships with ALO have project Web sites. The sites are linked from
the ALO page at http://www.aascu.org/alo/IP/proposals.htm. To add your
project site, please contact Jennifer Munro at munroj@aascu.org.
Projects with sites to date are as follows:
Oregon State University/Fort Cox College and
University of Fort Hare (South Africa):
http://www.cof.orst.edu/project/usaidalo/
University of Florida/Nicaragua Ministry of Agriculture
(Nicaragua): http://www.ifas.ufl.edu/%7Eipweb/nic-index.html
University of Georgia/Universidad Veracruzana
(Mexico): http://www.uga.edu/uga-uv/
University of Washington/Chulalongkorn University
(Thailand and other countries): http://boto.ocean.washington.edu/seasia/splash.htm
University of Washington/Silliman University (Phillippines):
http://sma-svr1.sma.washington.edu/iccm/
Washington University/Tribhuvan University (Nepal):
http://gwbweb.wustl.edu/nepal/—
BACK TO TOP
Texas Tech Collaborates
with USAID
USAID has begun working
with the Northwest Texas International Trade Center at Texas Tech
University in Lubbock, Texas, to promote collaboration on business
and trade with developing countries worldwide. The agreement, announced
April 7, will make USAID’s Global Technology Network available to
northwest Texas firms.
The Global Technology Network assists U.S. small and medium
size firms seeking access to emerging overseas markets, while supporting
USAID’s development agenda abroad. Thirty-one states have joined the
partnership with the Global Technology Network. The Northwest Texas
International Trade Center is funded by the state of Texas. Its mission
is to assist in promoting exports from the State of Texas. Last year,
it accounted for $37 million in export transactions.
“We’re very excited about the opportunities this relationship
will bring,” said Dr. David Schmidly, Vice President and Dean of the
Graduate School at Texas Tech. “This gives the business community
and the university enormous access to further the economic development
of northwest Texas.” —
 International
Higher Education Linkages Project Database Spotlight
The International
Higher Education Linkages Project database IHELP contains information
on international partnerships between over 200 U.S. and 2,000 foreign
higher education institutions and includes program areas, contact information,
project outcomes, and more. For more partnerships or to list your linkages,
see http://www.aascu.org/alo/ihelp.
The following is an example of an IHELP partnership.
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign/Institute of
Technology, Bandung (Indonesia)
Program Description: This
partnership strengthens planning, decision-making, communication, and
implementation of infrastructure projects and services at the community
level in Indonesian cities by introducing an empowerment model. It facilitates
university-community partnerships in Bandung through training, direct
technical assistance, and plan preparation.
A particular concern of the partnership is to model
gender participation in community planning, decision-making and implementation
in urban communities. In support of ongoing decentralization efforts
in Indonesia, the partnership will support overseas training for local
leaders, and increased research capacity to identify appropriate changes
in local governance.
Program Outcomes: 1. Orientation
program at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, October 1999
2. Community Development Workshop, Institute of Technology, Bandung,
February 2-3, 2000
3. Preparation of summaries of current community-based work by ITB faculty,
February, 2000
4. Process developed to identify pilot project areas in Bandung for
follow-up efforts, February 2000
5. Developed local government management orientation program for Bandung
local leaders, to be offered in July 2000
Emphasis Areas: Democracy/Governance,
Economic Growth, Human Capacity Development/Education
Funding Sources: USAID,
Own Institution, Ford Foundation, Jakarta, ALO
Funding Amount: Agency:
$100,000.00 , Matching: $148,194.00
Affiliated Agencies: Emerson
Park Development Corporation
Program Contact: Dr. Christopher Silver, 217-333-4555;
e-mail: silver@uiuc.edu —
Partnership
Profile Spotlight on...
Harford Community College/Moscow Medical College
 The
Russian nurse educators Natalia Sash, Galina Dovbish, Tina Zimmerman of
Harford Community College, Svetlana Mukhina, and Karina Kariban.
Moscow Medical
College, a leading nursing education institution in Russia, is working
with Harford Community College (HCC) to expand the role of Russian nurses.
This will ultimately lead to a more efficient, effective, and economical
use of the country’s health care resources.
Through their collaborative efforts with Moscow Medical
College #1 (MMC), the partners are effecting positive changes in the
role and status of nurses in Russia, the approach
to managing health care services, and management and service standards
and accountability in the nursing profession.
This project is strengthening curriculum at MMC with
an emphasis on Nursing Curriculum Development and Clinical Instruction
and Evaluation. The partners are facilitating the development of a nursing
philosophy and a conceptual framework, identifying
nursing program outcomes, and developing a systematic method of curriculum
evaluation. Additionally, the partners are evaluating
course syllabi, developing new syllabi, and constructing
tests. Educational seminars are being provided on nursing theory and
practice and on emerging professional issues. MCC aims to "export"
this approach to nursing throughout Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent
States (CIS) of the former Soviet Union.
In the fall of 1999, HCC Project Directors J. Ryker
Hughes and Tina Zimmerman and two more nursing professors worked with
MMC faculty and participated in the "Third International Scientific
and Practical Conference," which involved nurse educators from
throughout Russia. The conference focused on the current state of nursing
reform in Russia. Hughes and Zimmerman spoke about the partnership and
Zimmerman gave a presentation on Nursing Process and Documentation.
During the next phase, the partners plan to evaluate
second year nursing course syllabi and assist with revisions, and
design terminal nursing program outcomes. They also will
deliver a series of lectures at hospitals and at St. Petersburg
Midwifery College.
This project is made possible by an ALO/AACC grant of
$49,980 which is being complemented by approximately $54,000 from the
partners.
Watch for new developments on this story and others
on the ALO Web site, http://www.aascu.org/alo.—
- Food for the New Millennium:
Innovations in Nutrition, Food Safety and Biotechnology,
Tuskegee University’s International Food and Nutrition Conference,
will be held October 8-10 in Tuskegee, Alabama. See the conference
Web site for details at http://caens.tusk.edu/IFNC/ or
call Ralphenia Pace at (334) 727-8493.
-
Global Science and Technology
Week, May 7-13,
2000, brings celebrations of the "expanding opportunity
for the world’s best scientific minds to transcend national
boundaries and collaborate on new discoveries and shared global
problems." See the
White House Web site
at for activities.
-
Request for Applications for
Visiting Scholars Fellowship Program for Wireless Communications
Curriculum Development
was issued April 18. Proposals are due May 31. This Fellowship
program seeks to address the shortage of communication professionals
in emerging economies and is sponsored by the World Bank’s infoDev
and Motorola University. See http://www.infodev.org/projects/rfpmar00.htm
for details.
-
2000 China Changchun International
Education Exposition,
reportedly the largest education event in China this year, will
take place September 8-11 in Changchun, China. Contact
Wang Jiayi for information.
-
Secretary of Education Riley
Speaks of the Growing Importance of International Education
at La Maison Francaise April 19th. His remarks included the
following statements: "Many nations are facing an increased
demand for higher education, including our unique community
college system. As one expert wrote, the United States has a
‘highly forgiving’ system that allows more than one opportunity
to gain a college degree...Yes, we are fortunate tobe a great
superpower. But with that power comes a responsibility to work
with other nations, to respect their points of view, and to
work with educators throughout the world to help every child
and adult to reach their full potential."
-
Higher Education
in Developing Countries: Peril and Promise,
a new World Bank report, warns that higher education
in developing countries is inadequate and falling further behind.
An independent panel of world experts in education and international
development added that without swift action, these countries
would be unable to compete in the knowledge economy. "Well-educated
people from the developing world can be a powerful force for
change, but they need schools and academic opportunities in
their own countries," President James D. Wolfensohn said.
To order the report, go to the Web site at http://www.worldbank.org/html/extpb/howtoorder.htm.
-
USAID Revises Its Web site
for Human Capacity Development
at http://www.info.usaid.gov/educ_training/.
Check out the links to information about education and training
in international development.
-
UNESCO’s World
Education Forum brought delegates from 181 countries
and 100 nongovernmental organizations together April 26-28 in
Dakar, Senegal, to develop plans to ensure universal education
by 2015. According to UNESCO, 880 million adults are illiterate
worldwide and 113 million children (110 million in developing
countries) are not in school. "The elimination of poverty,
the promotion of democracy and the respect of rights of men
and women depend on progress in education," said UNESCO
Director General Koichiro Matsuura. See the Web site at http://www2.unesco.org/wef/.
-
Fulbright Scholarship
Competition for 2001-2002 opened March 1, with
a deadline of August 1, 2000. Visit http://www.cies.org
for more information or call (202) 686-7877.
-
USAID-Bureau
for Africa released a request on April 7 for
applications for a four-year cooperative agreement to establish
the Ronald H. Brown Institute for Sub-Saharan African Businesses
as a training center for young African entrepreneurs. The program
will consist of internships, institutional exchanges, and workshops
and seminars. The maximum award amount is $3 million and the
closing date for applications is 7 June 2000. Further information
can be found at http://www.info.usaid.gov/procurement_bus_opp/procurement/announce/cbd/1000404-152224.20960.shtml.
-
Ethnic Cleansing
in the 20th Century Conference
will be held October 10-12, 2000, at the University of South
Dakota (USD). Proposals for papers will be accepted until May
11. Topics may include causes and ramifications of particular
cases of genocide and ethnic-cleansing, theories on genocide
and ethnic-cleansing, domestic and international legal or political
responses to particular cases or the issues as a whole, and
the roles, reactions, and responsibilities of the media. For
further information, contact Dr. Tim Schorn at USD , by phone
at (605)677-5707 or e-mail tschorn@usd.edu.—
NEWS BRIEFS
Association Liaison Office for University
Cooperation in Development
Established in 1992, ALO coordinates the efforts of the nation's six
major higher education associations to build their partnership with
the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and to help their
member institutions plan and implement development programs with colleges
and universities abroad. Copyright 2000 by the Association Liaison Office.
All rights reserved. Use of this publication in full or partial form
is encouraged, but requires the permission of the publisher. Send comments,
requests for addition to list, questions, and ideas for stories to
ALO.
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