A partnership between UGA and the University of Zagreb could help turn a war-torn country with a world of potential into a future Economic Union member

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ohnny Cash comes on the radio as a busload of Georgians rumbles through foothills, along a river, and beneath pines that sway above the road. When the driver realizes his passengers like what they hear—as evidenced by how loudly they sing the chorus—he turns up the volume, both for their benefit and to compete with the engine slogging up a winding incline: "And it burns, burns, burns, the ring of fire . . . the ring of fire."

The singing continues until the bus comes to a sharp halt at a red-and-white-striped gate that blocks the road. A hardy contingent of UGA professors and outreach specialists peers out of the windows as uniformed guards motion to the driver that he can't simply drive across the newly policed border.

In years gone by, travelers approaching a checkpoint between Croatia and Slovenia—former country mates before the breakup of Yugoslavia—would have gone unnoticed. But with Slovenia due to enter the European Union in 2004, a crossing from the south is no longer the equivalent of going from Georgia to Tennessee. It's now more like a passage from Mexico to the U.S. with the fear that someone from the "developing side" might try to sneak into that inner sanctum of continental trade: the EU.

The Croatian border patrolmen labor over passports, calling the Americans into the guard shack one by one. During the hour-long wait, a surreal wedding party—horns blaring, streamers fluttering, headlights flashing in the blue dusk—convoys from one end of the village of Zamost to the other.

"Can't you see an ice cream shop right here?" asks one of the professors. "If you've got to wait for your passport to be processed, you might as well be able to eat ice cream. They'd make a killing." Another professor studies the area and says, "Yeah, but maybe a café instead. We'd call it the passport café . . . or maybe the bureaucratic buffet."

If this make-lemonade-from-lemons discussion sounds opportunistic and American, it should. That's precisely why this crew of Georgians was assembled. And it's why they've journeyed into a country that's reinventing itself after five decades of communism followed by five years of bombs and sniper fire from soldiers who had once been their countrymen. These experts have come to Croatia—located just across the Adriatic from Italy—to share community development strategies with the country's largest (65,000 students) and oldest (1662) university.

The University of Zagreb is of interest in the same way all of Georgia's international alliances are—because there are a slew of unique opportunities for both parties. But the UZ association also offers something no other partnership can: Croatia, with its combination of political nascence and 2,000 years of history. As the sole American university with a comprehensive bilateral agreement in the country, UGA is afforded the opportunity of developing ties in a number of fields. The multidisciplinary team that's conjecturing about the most suitable entrepreneurial scheme at the Slovenian-Croatian border—café or ice cream stand?—can attest to that. Standing in the waving grasses on this August evening, waiting to cross the Kupa River, UGA is represented in the fields of democratic governance, agriculture, entomology, forestry, wildlife resources, small business development, historic preservation, international affairs, and higher education research.

Rusty Brooks (PhD '82), a professor at UGA's International Center for Democratic Governance, leads the delegation. Brooks originally visited Croatia five years ago while researching methods for rural development—as a practice generally and, specifically, in Georgia, where his work on the U.S. 441 Heritage Corridor and in the town of Colquitt are seen as groundbreaking in the field of rural sustainability. From 1998 to 2003, Brooks met with Croat community leaders, government ministry officials, and professors to discuss ways in which UGA and the University of Zagreb could work together to help Croatia develop rural sustainability programs of its own through an American model: "university outreach."

The product of those discussions is this assembly of consultants, who will teach and encourage UZ officials to take the unprecedented step of initiating university-wide outreach programs to help their fellow Croatians—who are still reeling from a Yugoslavian civil war that ravaged the Balkan Peninsula. The goal of this visit is to tour the country, consider community issues specific to Croatia, as well as subjects all countries battle—modernity and urbanization, for example, which prey on rural populations—and then provide insights as to how UGA handles similar issues back home. From there, UZ must construct a plan of action.

"Coming out of the European model, as UZ does, there is less appreciation of what university outreach and service can mean in helping build a new Croatian society and democracy—but we are helping to build that appreciation," says Ed Simpson, a distinguished public service fellow in UGA's Institute of Higher Education. Simpson has come to Croatia on a parallel objective: to work with officials in the UZ rector's office (the equivalent of the president's office), who are restructuring their university to better comply with requirements for EU membership in 2007. To that end, Simpson is also working with the rector's office to schedule a higher education conference in Croatia's holiday Mecca, Dubrovnik, in May 2004. Another UGA delegate, crop and soil science professor Nick Hill, has come to Croatia to discuss how the services Georgia provides its farmers are of benefit to the state's entire citizenry.

"For instance, in Georgia we work to detect toxins in plants that animals graze upon and people subsequently eat," says Hill. "If an animal suffers from toxins, we must then work to assess needs and detoxify them. What many universities do in the way of research they often do for the sake of research, in and of itself. At UGA, we view outreach as something that's done not for any proprietary gain but simply to help people."

After paying the proper tariff and satisfying the border patrols that each person did match the picture on his or her passport, the bus proceeds on its trek to the Croatian village of Brod na Kupi in time for a late supper of hearty food served in wooden bowls. Brooks looks pleased. His next goal is to get his team acclimated quickly so they can be of service in a country they know little about. The hope is that after two weeks and much theoretical discussion a plan of action can be put into motion. Five minutes into the meal the Georgians and Croatians are already constructing what-if scenarios between courses of seared fish and rabbit, and over bottles of wine. "See, this is exactly what I envisioned," says Brooks. "These are not just experts from forestry, agriculture, or small business development, but people who think big—beyond what another person might see or call basic responsibility."

drought choked Europe all summer. The signs were evident even from several thousand feet as the airplane descended over Zagreb. Instead of farm squares with luscious green patterns of diagonal, then perpendicular, then diagonal crop rows, there was only defeated brown separated by dusty roads. But just as the UGA professors touched down, the weather began to change. The temperatures, which had been torturous only the week before, shifted to autumn.

As they shook off jetlag under a kaleidoscope of café umbrellas that line the Croatian capital's main promenade, it was clear that changes were taking place within the Americans as well. Regardless of what the world had seen of the Balkan war, Croats were not running from bunker to bunker or tightrope walking between land mines.

"Usually when you think of a war-torn country, you don't think of nice homes, sleek buildings and shops, and everyone dressed in chic clothes," said one Georgian.

"This is such relaxation—just to sit here, sip espresso, and watch beautiful people go by," said another.

Roughly one-third the size of Georgia, Croatia is a country with immense physical and topographical variety. It has bountiful farmlands, a snow-peaked alpine region, and a coastline that extends the length of the country with more than 1,000 islands—as beautiful as the Greek Isles, and with fewer tourists. Croatia is home to a generous and proud population of 4.5 million people who earn about one quarter of their U.S. counterparts' salaries. They are fanatical about their history, can recite facts about art from rote memorization, and enjoy wine and brandy as much as the French or the Italians. Visitors are hard-pressed to escape any home after just one glass of the family's homemade rakija (fruit-based liquor that's consumed with a moonshine-type camaraderie). Those who try are told, "No really, you must have another."

But for all of its beauty and rich culture, Croatia has its share of difficulties. The communist hangover will take a long time to shed, as will the fallout from the war. Anyone watching the nightly news and the shelling of Vukovar or Dubrovnik in 1991 remembers the mass graves, snaking lines of refugees, and charred, roofless homes.

"We fought the last romantic war in Europe," says Sasa Boric, a former assistant minister of tourism and presently a researcher at the Pilar Institute of Social Sciences and UZ instructor, "We fought for a higher purpose and in defense."

For Brooks, who calls Croatia, "my favorite country," the Yugoslavian civil war was not just another faraway world conflict that reached us in news reports but a disaster that hit close to home because it was European.

"So many of us have roots in this part of the world," says Brooks. "It was just hard to believe that such violence was happening in a place so many Americans can relate to."

The four-year conflict led to the independence of the former Yugoslav republics of Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. And though the desired result was achieved—autonomy from a Serb-controlled Yugoslavia created after WWII as a federation of six nominally equal republics—it came at the expense of 250,000 lives and millions of people displaced across the peninsula. The hostilities and reported atrocities in the region also stigmatized the global standings of the countries involved—Croatia included. That's a sore spot for many Croats, who seem frustrated by their association with the Balkans after they had occupied a place in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, where Croatia buffered Europe from the encroaching Ottoman Empire.

When the UGA delegation drove to Croatia's eastern boundary, where one can peer through a chain link fence and across the Danube into Serbia, Boric gazed across the rolling expanses from the town of Ilok to the Serb town of Bac Palanka, just a couple of miles away, and declared, "This marks the end of Western thought."

Falling off the European radar for what many Croatians viewed as simple self-defense is an issue made more sensitive by the recent EU inclusion of Croatia's neighbor Slovenia.

"Becoming a full member of the EU is national goal number one," says Ivan Grdesic, Croatia's Ambassador to the U.S. "There exists a national consensus regarding this issue, and all major parties support it fully. Membership in the Union is seen as a final proof of Croatia's 'return home' and the overcoming of its unfortunate past."

At press time, the Croatian application for EU candidacy was under review. And among the more than 4,000 application questions that were answered by Croatian governmental bodies was a section regarding compliance with the Bologna Declaration. Signed in 1998, that declaration states that each signatory (presently 29 European countries) would, of their own volition, "reform its own higher education system or systems to create an overall convergence at the European level." For Croatia and UZ this means consolidating a multi-headed system of 33 autonomous faculties (the equivalent of colleges or departments) under one rector and one UZ flag, as is the case at UGA.

"Ed Simpson's role is very important regarding his expertise in different issues concerning the management of higher education," says UZ's vice-rector for international relations Vlasta Vizek-Vidovic. "We hope that partnership with UGA will help develop counseling and professional staff programs in different aspects of governance and management at UZ." For James Reap, a UGA public service associate and a fellow at the Rusk Center, the partnership is just as important for UGA as it is for UZ. "We have already had one study abroad program on Croatia's coast and Rusty is trying to set up another," says Reap, who also teaches historic preservation, land use, and environmental law in the College of Environment and Design. "Our work here gives us a chance to see a country in transition into a capitalist system. It's important to have programs in places like England but it is also important to have them in places that are entirely different."

Steve Wrigley, UGA's senior vice president for external affairs and the former director of the International Center for Democratic Governance, agrees.

"UZ will benefit from UGA's organizational methods but we are benefiting from our association with UZ just as much if not more," says Wrigley, who made an official visit to Croatia in June. "We are having the privilege of learning about a vast history and a completely different system of decision making. By no means do we, at UGA, have it all figured out."

n 1998, while in Austria as a Salzburg Fellow, Rusty Brooks attended think-tank sessions designed to facilitate international exchange. Tihana Stepinac Fabijanic, a Croat, explained that her NGO (non-governmental organization), the International Center of Anthropology Motovun (ICAM), was interested in developing heritage trails in Croatia's Kupa River Valley to regenerate rural communities and promote tourism.

Later that year, Brooks traveled to Croatia, where he shared with UZ officials the results of work he'd started in Georgia nearly 20 years earlier—first as a program director in the Community and Regional Development Division of the Carl Vinson Institute of Government and then as a member of the International Center for Democratic Governance. His successes in Georgia provided the Croats with an idea of what could be achieved in their rural communities, which had been heavily affected by war.

Brooks shared with them one such program in which he and colleague Alan Moore, a former UGA professor of adult education, helped the southwest Georgia town of Colquitt secure the resources necessary to revitalize their downtown. Colquitt, in turn, renovated a hotel and meeting space, converted a cotton warehouse into a telecommunications center, developed a community park, and saved a hospital that is now the largest employer in Miller County. "Community development is a matter of being a cheerleader—and giving people confidence," says Brooks. "It's when they continue the projects on their own—and start others—that it becomes sustainability."

In February, Croatians saw firsthand how UGA outreach works when they visited Athens. During their two-week stay, the Croats met with University officials, saw the Gym Dogs compete against Florida at Stegeman Coliseum, and visited Colquitt.

"Many things UGA was doing around Georgia were inspiring, especially the fact that [the projects] varied in themes, ways, and methods, but always connected with the overall idea of spreading knowledge and service," says Fabijanic. "Colquitt was one of the very good examples of involving local people in education with entertainment and, at the same time, bringing economic success. But Americans are known as very practical and straightforward people, while Europeans are more complex and complicated . . . Croatians especially."

In 1997, Brooks spearheaded another program, the 441 Heritage Corridor, that seemed to parallel what Fabijanic is trying to achieve in the Kupa River Valley. The program brought communities along U.S. 441 together to discover ways in which they could develop sustainable tourism. The plan featured the area's indigenous foods, historic sites, and local artists—and asked the question: "What is a heritage corridor?" It then answered the question, stating that it is, ". . . a region having unique natural, cultural, and historical resources that identifies a special 'sense of place.'"

Jerry Chappelle, a former UGA art professor and owner of Happy Valley Pottery in Watkinsville, is a 441 artist whose popular wares are a great example of cultural marketing. Chappelle accompanied Brooks to Croatia in 2000 and 2001 to attend the first International Conference on Ecotourism and to help plan the Croatian village of Ribnik's first rural heritage festival.

"What both Croatia and Georgia possess, that helps the creation of this type of ecotourism, is hospitality," says Chappelle. "What you are actually selling is not so much a product as an attitude. That's what keeps people talking and coming back. Rusty has been integral in pinpointing that thing that places can market as their attitude."

here is no word for "outreach" in Croatian. When Croats speak of target community projects, they accentuate the American word, which stands out like "baseball" or "cowboy," sandwiching it between rolling Slavic sentences. Phraseology of this sort was the norm at the Partnership for Sustainable Rural Economic Revitalization in Croatia conference hosted by UZ, UGA, and ICAM in September—the country's first forum dealing with the subject. Experts from Europe and Georgia gathered on the island of Mali Losinj and spoke to the issues of Croatia's future—essentially the massive growth that would accompany EU membership and the need for rural sustainability. As sunlight played off flapping boat sails in the indigo blue Adriatic Sea, architects, sociologists, business developers, and agriculturists warned that only with communication among all of Croatia's entities—educational, civic, and governmental—could healthy growth be expected.

Bojan Baletic, chairman of UZ's Council for the Support of Regional Development and Local Community, asked those in attendance, "Can we build local government, NGO, and local business support to create a stronger base for development?" He explained how UZ had to take the lead and then showed a slide of UGA's organizational chart that focused the land grant university's objectives not just toward the pursuit of teaching and research but to the necessity of taking that expertise into the field.

"There are 6,292 villages in Croatia with less than 300 people," says Baletic, a successful architect as well as a UZ professor. "Five percent of Croatians farm, so what do the rest of these people do? Our farmlands are neglected from after the war, so we know our work force is free for other things . . . but we have no clear strategy."

Boric, who also attended the conference, is more blunt in her assessment of the need for strategy.

"[Croatia] is ignoring rural development," she says. "The neglect of rural areas continues now into the post-communist period because you still have the same [communist era] people around even though the normative system has changed. So you have a substantial lack of knowledge about how to develop rural areas. I was excited to find out that a moral obligation for UGA to help the communities of the state of Georgia is elaborated in a sophisticated system of institutions and human resource assignments that works. This proactive and flexible attitude of the University in all possible directions was the biggest discovery for me."

Outreach is an American invention born with the creation of land-grant colleges by the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890. The original mission of these institutions was to "teach agriculture, military tactics, and the mechanical arts as well as classical studies so that members of the working classes could obtain a liberal, practical education." The federal act donated "public lands to the several States and Territories" in return for the education of its citizens. Currently, there are 105 land-grant colleges, which receive more than $550 million dollars per year. That funding mandates that the institutions share the tripartite mission of teaching, research, and extension as well as fulfill a collective charge of openness, accessibility, and service to people.

UGA is viewed nationwide as a shining example of a land-grant college that excels with regard to extension. As reported in the Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement, UGA, when compared to other institutions, "enjoys strong state support and a reputation for its commitment to public service." The reason for this success, according to the journal, is that "UGA is seen as having people out in the community . . . There is a general sense that UGA is living up to its charge as the land-grant institution, and because of it, legislative and funding support for the institution has been strong."

Those tenets were taken on the road throughout Croatia as the UGA delegation visited destinations of interest both before and after they attended Mali Losinj conference. Outreach discussions permeated ecotourism sites along the nature trails in the Gorski Kotar along the Kupa River. Ideas for growth were circulated during a trip to the hunting town of Delnice, which included a tour of a traditional home—with a single room and a prominent wood stove—that had been converted into a cultural museum. And then it was off to Scrad, where one of Croatia's few rural business incubators is located. The trip included a stop on the island of Unije, where a dwindling population of 80 ekes out a living in disjointed agriculture projects.

"Why can't you have some kind of a dude ranch, like we do in America?" asked Nick Hill. "People could come, work the olive trees, get into the romance of it, and pay you to do it."

"Yes, it is a good idea," said Robert Nikolic, Unije's unofficial mayor. "But in my experience, people who come from asphalt tend to quit early."

In Vukovar, where Croatians suffered heavy war losses, the UGA team saw a town still pockmarked and crumbling more than a decade after the conflict. They also toured the outwardly idyllic towns of Samobor and Krasic in the mountainous Zumberak region, where both beauty and unemployment are the norm. On the last day, the group toured the Lura food industry plant in Zagreb, where the Croatian corporation produces milk products and an assortment of beverages. The company has operating revenue of nearly $280 million and purchases milk from 28,000 Croatian farmers. UGA and UZ faculty met in tandem with Lura officials to discuss the positive impact of a UZ/Lura partnership with regard to outreach projects and a more economically viable rural Croatia.

"I think the corporate partnership between Lura and UZ will have a lot of value," says Hill. "They are establishing credibility with a major industry that could wind up being a tremendous advocate for the whole university system—recognizing the value of the outreach effort while providing feedback to political groups as to their experiences, and, hopefully, with added funding for their efforts resulting. An example is something I'm working on with the American Malt Barley Association, which has a quality-control problem for barley intended for food and beverage products. The AMBA partnered with farmers and scientists to push federal legislation through to fund a cooperative scientific, research, farmer effort to develop barley varieties without those quality control issues."

The Americans were last to address conference-goers on Mali Losinj. Simpson, with a confident Virginia drawl that was unfortunately lost in the translation headsets worn by those in the crowd, said, "The theoretical tenet underpinning our partnership [between UZ and UGA] is that if we work on things together, we're stronger. We are learning much from you about what works in this setting and then based on our learning together, you can discard what doesn't work."

Brooks, on the brink of tears, closed the conference as he announced to the assembly, which was largely Croatian: "I really love this place and see its potential. So many good things toward the achievement of that potential can come from UZ outreach—just as they have at UGA, where we consider our classroom to be the state, country, and world. When someone asks me, 'Why should we be engaged in the communities?' I say because our help and expertise is something people trust, and then when times get rough those folks are willing to stand up for us. People are proud of the University of Georgia."

or many, Croatia is not so much a beautiful spot on the map as a synonym for danger; the lingering tragedy of a bloody modern war is a hard distinction to shake. But what many may soon learn—especially when it regains prominence as a travel destination—is that this is a country of green rolling slopes, mountains, and endless shorelines. Croatia is a family that still presses just enough grapes and olives to satisfy its needs until the next harvest. Croatia is the exposed Roman building foundations on Unije that Nikolic absent-mindedly carved with his hands as he sifted through layers of limestone and spoke with UGA professors. Croatia is rakija-serving nuns, cell phones, and 1000-year-old cathedrals.

"When I told people I was coming to Croatia, they said, 'Are you crazy? Will you be safe?'" says Simpson. "People think it's still a war zone."

"Yes, they do," says Dan Horton, an entomologist who works for UGA's cooperative extension service and specializes in peaches. "But this is a wonderful place that is head and shoulders above the countries in the area in terms of natural resources. That is why they have so much potential—especially if they can keep their products here and create value-added income (furniture, for example, made from domestic timber)."

At the final meeting of the trip, the 20 people involved in the "Partnership for sustainable rural economic revitalization in Croatia"—as the title of the original ALO/USAID proposal stated—crammed themselves into a hotel conference room just big enough to hold them. The UGA, UZ, and ICAM representatives looked tired, and rightfully so. The group had traveled thousands of kilometers to assess the feasibility of a healthy, sustainable Croatia because, as the ALO grant request explained, "At present, the national government's resources are focused on the important tasks of war reconstruction . . . Consequently, the national government has limited funds to invest in underdeveloped rural areas."

Toward meeting's end, vice-rector Vizek-Vidovic decided that the most responsible course of action was to choose a locale in economic need that's close to Zagreb and where UZ already has a presence.

"I think it's better to start in a safer environment," she said with regard to quelling the possible critics on UZ's maiden outreach voyage.

"I think that makes sense," said Horton. "In the beginning, small victories can be very important."

"We will be of assistance in any way you decide we can be," added Brooks.

Baletic, who had organized the trip from the Croatian end, seemed relieved that a resolution had been reached. And in the "don't worry" style in which he had handled logistics during the preceding fortnight, he became jovially philosophic.

"We had doubts about the process when we first went to Georgia," he said. " 'What are we doing?' we asked ourselves. But when we came back, we were certain this could work. We have but 4.5 million people in Croatia with an abundance of resources . . . we should be living like kings."

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