Year in Review - June 2000 to June 2001

April 1 – 7
Visit by a delegation from the University of Fort Hare

Twelve leaders from the University of Fort Hare spent a week at the University of Connecticut meeting with counterparts in a wide range of academic and staffing areas. Our efforts focussed on identifying important partnership needs and UConn personnel who could collaborate in addressing these needs. Considerable time was given over to planning workshops and other training activities that could be presented at UFH in June or later. Other activities included on-going effort to identify areas for curricular and research collaboration.

The visit was an important step in building the partnership. First it highlighted the significance of the relationship for both partners; in this regard UFH Vice Chancellor Derrick Swartz proved highly effective in stating the opportunities offered by the partnership. More specifically, partners in such administrative areas as the library, student services, enrollment management as well as the academic areas of agriculture, business, education, law and human rights all reported success in identifying areas for collaboration and moving the partnership forward.

This meeting produced a series of priorities for the University of Fort Hare, the first of which, faculty development will be the focus of an intensive workshop in November 2001. Other priorities, many of which were raise in the February meetings (see above), were refined, and specific programs and individuals were identified to address them. These include but are not limited to: recruitment management, academic support, fund raising, human rights collaboration and agriculture. While workshops and exchanges are planned for many of these area, we are particularly excited by the prospect of research collaboration between the two schools of agriculture, including a visit planned by a team of UConn agriculture professors in late October.