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Columns::February 18, 2002
Senior VP Costello will step down March 1
State legislator will give Black History Month lecture
International symposium examines change in Europe
The British are coming: Oxford Union to debate team of UGA students
Holiday schedule remains unchanged
Public relations work wins awards
What went wrong: Accounting expert discusses accountability issues at Enron, Arthur Andersen
Campus Closeup
Kudos
Administrative changes
Bug’s-eye view
Under construction
Campus News
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| Scholars from nine west African nations met this past month with UGA faculty and staff during a day-long workshop at the Georgia Center for Continuing Education. |
Taking the initiative
Multidisciplinary effort balances UGA’s strengths with Africa’s needs
By Jennifer Freeman
jdeprima@uga.edu
Over the past several years, UGA has been rapidly expanding its global presence through numerous initiatives, research partnerships and studies-abroad opportunities. Relationships with institutions in more than 50 nations have resulted in exchanges of scholarship, technology and other resources that have enriched the experiences of researchers, practitioners and students of the partner schools.
In July 2001, the Office of the Vice President for Public Service and Outreach partnered with the Office of International Public Service and Outreach and the African Studies Institute to develop the Africa Initiative. The goal of the initiative is to stimulate public service and outreach projects with nations throughout Africa, as opposed to more traditional academic and research-based activities. The idea, according to Art Dunning, vice president for public service and outreach, is to develop a strategy that balances UGA’s strengths with Africa’s needs and priorities.
“We are defining public service and outreach projects as capacity building through technical assistance, applied research and training,” Dunning says. “We want to focus on multi-disciplinary collaborations and service-learning projects that will engage communities on both continents and result in sustainable change.”
A working group convened to devise a strategy for the initiative; its composition reflects that multidisci-plinary approach, with faculty from the Vinson Institute for Government, the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, the College of Education, and the College of Family and Consumer Sciences.
Since last summer, several projects and events have been organized under the auspices of the Africa Initiative. In the fall, the Office of International Public Service and Outreach supported a visit from D’Hamidou Boly of Burkina Faso. Boly worked with Ignacy Misztal in the department of animal and dairy science to learn about data and recording methods for genetic evaluations of dairy cattle.
In late January, the Office of International Public Service and Outreach and the African Studies Institute hosted a visit from 11 scholars and administrators from institutions in Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Niger, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Côte d’Ivoire and Tunisia. The visitors met with UGA faculty and staff from the Warnell School of Forest Resources, the Georgia Center for Continuing Education, the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, the College of Family and Consumer Sciences, the Institute of Higher Education, and other UGA units. They discussed possibilities for collaborating in information technology, teacher training, graduate student training, languages, and staff and student training.
Glenn Ames, the director of International Public Service and Outreach, says he was encouraged by the enthusiasm generated by the African scholars’ visit.
“The overwhelming response by UGA faculty and staff is an indication that we are on target with the original goals of the Africa Initiative,” says Ames. “It is important now to maintain this momentum and build upon this success.”
Ames is planning follow-up visits to Benin and Burkina Faso later this spring to strengthen ties with universities, NGOs, and U.S. government funding agencies in western Africa.
Also this spring, the Africa Initiative, with support from the Honors Program, will sponsor its first student service-learning project. During the May term, Josh Woodruff, a senior Honors student majoring in cellular biology and biochemistry, will travel with classmates Jordan Hylton and Hugh Rickenbaker to the Tanzanian town of Mwanza, on the eastern shore of Lake Victoria. The students will work with the staff at Mwanza’s Sekuture Hospital to address reducing malaria infections in the hospital by installing screens on windows. Malaria, spread primarily by mosquitoes, accounts for more than one-fourth of the hospitalizations in Tanzania.
The students also will work to increase the hospital’s access to current medical journals. To accomplish this, the students will examine Mwanza’s network infrastructure and facilitate the future networking capability.
The African Studies Institute, under the direction of comparative literature professor Lioba Moshi, is co-sponsoring the students’ work with the Office of International Public Service and Outreach. “The May term programs have been instrumental in preparing students for service learning,” she says. “There is no doubt that the Africa Initiative is an excellent example of the needed collaboration across units to provide opportunities for faculty, staff and students to expand their horizons.”
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