International education moves forward
The lead item here is creation in 2010 of the Center for Middle East Studies and Partnerships.
It will bring together academic programs that already exist within the University as well as several overseas activities. Prof. David Coury, Humanistic and Global Studies, serves as director. The Center will be a resource on the cultures and languages of the Middle East. Academically the Center will assist and help promote Arabic language courses, serve as a resource for the infusion of greater Middle Eastern content into pre-existing courses and in conjunction with the Office of International Education, help build and maintain ties to academic institutions in the Middle East, particularly the University of Jordan, with which we have a memorandum of understanding.
That agreement has already allowed UW-Green Bay to receive several State Department grants, including the summer Journey to Jordan program for high school students, and this spring’s Young Entrepreneurs program, which provided entrepreneurship training for five visiting professional women from Jordan and five from Israel and linked them with mentors from the Northeast Wisconsin business community. (This program was very well-received.) Additionally, Prof. Coury is a co-recipient of a Fulbright-Hays Group Projects Abroad award to lead an interdisciplinary contingent of select faculty and students as well as K-12 educators from across the state to spend a month in Jordan later this year.
Other highlights:
- Last June, UW-Green Bay partnered with the BEM Bordeaux Management School in Bordeaux, France, to establish a degree program exchange at the master’s level allowing the transfer of credits between schools. We welcomed our first two students from France in fall;
- A fall visit by a Finnish delegation included Carl Björnberg, board chairman of the Finnish paper giant Myllykoski Corp., who addressed a Green Bay audience on the future of the paper industry;
- In 2009 UW-Green Bay extended its International Visiting Scholars Program partnership with nearby St. Norbert College. In the program’s first five years, the initiative, largely funded by private donations, has brought 10 scholars to the Green Bay areas for guest lectures, workshops and residencies at both institutions;
- In May we were selected a host university for the Edmund S. Muskie Graduate Fellowship Program, which funds one- and two-year residencies by visiting grad students from Central Asia. Our first participant will arrive soon from Uzbekistan for studies in our Master’s in Management program;
- Last October Chancellor Harden signed an international memorandum of understanding with representatives from the Universidad Nacional de Tumbes in Tumbes, Peru, regarding possible future exchanges;
- The Chancellor expressed his continuing support for internal funding for site visits to other countries, crucial in organizing new study-abroad opportunities. He described the 15 faculty members leading international-travel trips in 2009 as a notable number for an institution with fewer than 200 full-time faculty members.
...the Center will assist and help promote Arabic language courses, serve as a resource for the infusion of greater Middle Eastern content into pre-existing courses and...help build and maintain ties to academic institutions in the Middle East...
