The Office of International Programs at West Virginia University (WVU-OIP) was recently awarded three grants totaling nearly $450,000 for international collaboration in development, cultural exchanges and student study abroad.
Activities link WVU departments across the university with higher education institutions in Canada, Mexico, Mozambique, Romania and South Africa. These grants will enable faculty, staff and students to pursue topical interests, global development and valuable cultural experiences in other countries.
“The mission of our office, WVU -OIP, emphasizes student study abroad, and our professional staff works with faculty, students and staff across the university,”said Dr. Daniel Weiner, director.”We have an interdisciplinary approach that is vital. It gives WVU a solid basis for developing strong international linkages, while providing long-term academic benefits for WVU students and faculty.”
The WVU -OIP international grants are funded by the U.S. Department of State, U.S. Agency for International Development and U.S. Department of Education. A summary of the grants:
South Africa and Mozambique
For the College and University Affiliations Program (CUAP), the U.S. Department of State provided WVU -OIP with $32,000 in interim funds of a $146,000 request for a three-year (2001-2003) project entitled, Information Technology for Higher Education Capacity Building in Southern Africa.
Several Eberly College of Arts and Sciences units (Geography, English and Foreign Languages) will work with the WVU Extension Service and the Regional Research Institute to develop an innovative international collaboratory. This is an information technology initiative for building human and technological capacity in higher education that will contribute towards regional development. It links WVU with the University of Pretoria in South Africa, and Catholic University of Mozambique in a partnership, which is intended to foster international and intra-regional cooperation through Community-Integrated Geographic Information Systems (CiGIS) and curriculum development for Distance Education.
Built from traditional GIS strategies, CiGIS is an attempt to broaden the use of digital spatial data handling technologies in the context of two important social science and development themes: land use planning and medical geography. The objective is to increase the number and diversity of community people who participate in spatial decision-making. Distance education will use available technologies to deliver off-campus instruction in southern Africas poorly serviced areas and contribute to WVU s distance education curriculum.
p. Romania
p. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) approved a $89,000 grant to WVU -OIP for development of a new WVU partnership in Romania. This involves universities and a non-government organization known as DEEP (Development through Economic Education and Partnership). WVU faculty will be involved in community design work and environmental remediation in helping to develop Romanias Jiu Valley coal mining region.
Participating units include Extension Services Community and Workforce Development unit and the Environmental Technology Division of the National Research Center for Coal and Energy (NRCCE). This summer a WVU community design team will assist in training community leaders in the cities of Lupeni and Petrosani while NRCCE staff will conduct training in order to implement a high impact environmental demonstration project in the two cities. Meanwhile, the WVU Regional Research Institute will conduct research to identify strategies for improving Romanias eco-tourism economy.
*Mexico and Canada
With the first WVU student exchange this semester, WVU -OIP and the Department of Interior Design (Davis College of Agriculture, Forestry, and Consumer Affairs) initiated a $206,000 multi-year program funded by the U.S. Department of Educations North American Mobility Program. This Consortium for Design Education (CODE) provides WVU s interior design students with stipends to offset travel costs of study abroad at universities in Canada and Mexico. About 65 students from the U.S., Canada and Mexico will be involved in semester exchanges through 2004.
Last fall, a two-day online design activity engaged 180 interior design students from the partnered institutions, including 40 WVU students. In this distance education project, students interacted in a virtual classroom using web-based exercises, graphic work, bulletin board chat rooms and a three-country videoconference. Students applied classroom and technical skill in solving design problems that also posed cultural and language issues. This activity will be replicated by WVU in the Fall 2001 semester.
The other CODE partners are Mount Royal College and Kwantlen University College (Canada); the University of Guanajuato and Guadalajara University Autonoma (Mexico). WVU s stateside partner is Texas Christian University. Both the Canadian ($144,000) and Mexican ($78,000) governments provided additional funds.