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Columns::January 27, 2003
A fitting memorial: Paul D. Coverdell Center for Biomedical and Health Sciences
Biology symposium focuses on plant, animal interactions
Honors student and Foundation Fellow wins fellowship
Australian filmmaker visits Grady College
Three win staff award in Warnell School of Forest Resources
Peabody program begins annual review process
Campus Closeup
Director of community relations named
Kudos
New directions: Office of Institutional Research and Planning prepares for change
Students offer ideas for new Lamar Dodd School of Art
Campus News
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| Planning the joint project were (from left) Kamel Braham, director of the University Mission of Tunisia in North America; Takoi Hamrita, project director and UGA associate professor of biological and agricultural engineering; Sadok Chaabane, Tunisian minister of higher education for scientific research and technology; and Ed Simpson, Distinguished Public Service Fellow at UGA’s Institute of Higher Education. |
UGA delegation begins project planning and Tunisian leaders
By Alan Flurry
aflurry@engr.uga.edu
Takoi Hamrita, associate professor of biological and agricultural engineering, and Ed Simpson, Distinguished Public Service Fellow in the Institute of Higher Education, traveled to Tunisia over the year-end break as part of the next stage in a grant awarded to Hamrita by the U.S. Department of State this past fall. The nearly $300,000 grant established a partnership between UGA and the University System of Tunisia.
With an ambitious international project, Hamrita and Simpson believed it was important to discuss the project agenda with their partners.
“We were meeting with university faculty and administration as well as government officials to make sure that our project objectives are adding to on-going initiatives in Tunisian higher education,” Hamrita says. They met with the minister of higher education, two secretaries of state, members of the Tunisian cabinet and several university presidents and faculty.
The results were substantial: matching funds from the Tunisian government for the project were tripled, with a commensurate increase in the number of faculty and administrative participants.
“The amount and quality of support and interest we found was overwhelming but not surprising,” Hamrita says, “considering this is something we’ve been working on for many years and waiting to see materialize on both sides.” She is enthusiastic about the positive tone of the meetings and planning sessions.
Hamrita and Simpson also met with Sadok Chaabane, minister of higher education for scientific research and technology, and Hamrita took part in a telephone interview on Tunisian national television, on a popular program that focuses on Tunisians abroad.
“Many people don’t know the University of Georgia,” she says, “so part of it was to let them know who we are.”
Hamrita says that Tunisia is experiencing a boom in higher education; it is widely estimated that by 2006 the university student population will double to more than 500,000. This demographic trend has led to significant efforts both to globalize higher education and to re-integrate Tunisian graduates who are now overseas. The three Tunisian universities partnering with UGA on this project are Mannouba University, Université du Centre and the Virtual University.
Hamrita and Simpson observed a demonstration of an online course on a Web development platform in Arabic, French and English. As part of the Virtual University, an Internet course-development initiative to connect higher education institutions, students will be required by 2006 to take 20 percent of their curriculum online. The goal is to encourage post-secondary online learning nationwide, and Hamrita says it demonstrates the government’s commitment to infrastructure and instruction.
Hamrita’s project aims to train faculty in new pedagogy, train administrators in human resource development and automated management of student affairs and develop a two-year graduate degree in higher education management. The Institute of Higher Education considers the degree program a model.
“The Institute and the Office of Instructional Support and Development are the experts with an international reputation in training faculty,” says Hamrita. “In that context, the project is about relating these training techniques and sharing with Tunisia the ways UGA keeps its faculty and administrators on the cutting edge.”
The Faculty of Engineering, an interdisciplinary springboard for collaborative projects involving teaching and scholarship, and the Office of International Agriculture are two of the units that will provide logistical, long-term support for this project. Hamrita says the breadth of expertise in international collaboration across the UGA campus is essential to the success of the project.
The next step will be the arrival of a delegation from Tunisia in April. They will be preparing for workshops that the delegation from UGA will conduct in Tunisia in summer 2003. |
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