UM Launches Partnership with African Universities

University of Mississippi students enjoy a meal at a restaurant in Addis Ababa while hearing from AAU President, Dr. Admasu Tsegaye, about cultural relationships between various dances and Ethiopian cuisine.

Long known as a mysterious continent seen only in movies or on the evening news, Africa is opening up for University of Mississippi students to study, experience and learn firsthand about international issues.

The UM Office of Global Engagement has launched a major international initiative to develop and establish a significant footprint in sub-Saharan Africa for the university. The new initiative, known as Ole Miss in Africa, has already produced functional partnerships with reputable universities in the eastern, western and southern regions of Africa.

The Ole Miss in Africa initiative will contribute significantly to the university’s strategic objective of “bringing the world to Mississippi and taking Mississippi to the world,” Provost Morris Stocks said.

“We are committed to broadening the university’s reach around the world,” Stocks said. “This will provide many more opportunities for our students to get real-world experience beyond the classroom and also allow our students and faculty to apply their knowledge to help solve global problems that affect us all.”

The initial African institutional partners include Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia; the University of Benin and Federal University of Technology-Minna, both in Nigeria; the International Institute for Water and Environmental Engineering in Burkina Faso; and Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in South Africa.

Each of these institutions is partnering with UM for student and faculty exchange activities, research partnerships and educational collaborations. These collaborations include training students and faculty from these institutions at UM, and study abroad opportunities for Ole Miss students.

“In our present globalized world, the University of Mississippi takes the education of our students as global citizens very seriously. Therefore, the development of a strong presence in Africa will not only enhance the global reach of the University of Mississippi, but also contribute significantly to our ongoing comprehensive campus internationalization efforts” said Nosa O. Egiebor, UM’s senior international officer and executive director of global engagement.

The African initiative is being developed on the platform provided by a new United States Agency for International Development grant under the African-U.S. Higher Education Partnership Program. It is managed by the American Council on Education through the Office of Higher Education for Development in Washington, D.C.

Egiebor is the project director for the grant at UM.

The university has similar initiatives planned in Asia, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East and Australasia.

Courtesy of Ryan Whittington, Ole Miss News Desk