The University of Georgia-Tunisia Educational Partnership has been recognized for its innovation by a leading international education organization.  The Andrew Heiskell Award for Innovation in International Education is given yearly by the Institute of International Education, the preeminent global higher education and professional exchange organization, to honor innovative new programs. The UGA-Tunisia partnership will also be featured as a best practice in the Institute’s magazine, “IIE Networker,” and web site, IIENetwork (http://iienetwork.org/).

Takoi Hamrita, a UGA engineering professor and the partnership’s founding director, will travel to New York to accept the award at the United Nations on March 13 and to take part in a panel discussion by national experts on ways to makes college campuses more international.

“Often the greatest barriers to international collaboration are within the institutions themselves,” said Dr. Hamrita.  “Through building our partnership, we’ve learned how to better integrate resources and knowledge while improving coordination across all university functions.”

The UGA-Tunisia Educational Partnership has taken UGA’s core mission of teaching, research, and service international, resulting in large-scale changes in both Tunisia and at UGA.  The program has expanded UGA’s international programs to a new and important part of the world and further benefited Tunisia by helping to guide higher education reform.

Among the program’s most notable achievements are the building of a sustainable e-learning environment in Tunisia; building international, multidisciplinary communities including graduate and undergraduate students, faculty, administration, and communities; and expanding the role of engineering in social and global development.

“Good, workable models for building international programs are in short supply,” said Provost Arnett C. Mace Jr. “Dr. Hamrita and the UGA-Tunisia Partnership have established a new approach to collaboration that’s proving both effective and influential.  As a result, they’ve brought both positive attention and new opportunities to University of Georgia.”

Higher education leaders in Tunisia have praised the UGA program as one of the most innovative and effective educational partnerships to exist between Tunisia and the U.S.  Recognition through the Heiskell Award follows two prestigious Tunisian awards presented in 2007: the National Medal of Merit in Science and Education, given by the president of Tunisia; and the Tunisian Community Center’s Ibn Khaldoun Award for Excellence in Community Service.

The UGA-Tunisia Educational Partnership was established in 2002 with funding from the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and the MEPI program of the U.S. State Department.