IUPUI receives new Fulbright-Hays Group Projects Abroad grant
(Editor's note: View a YouTube video about the IUPUI-Moi University Partnership at this web site: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jyOKcPsmmA.)
The Fulbright-Hays Group Projects Abroad (GPA) Program in the U.S. Department of Education has awarded an $85,180 grant to IUPUI's Office of International Affairs for a curriculum internationalization project titled "Understanding Kenya through Partnership and Service: Focus on Curriculum Development."
Learn more about the IU/Moi University partnership by view the video mentioned at the top of the page.
The grant will support a small group of IUPUI faculty and students as well as several Indianapolis Public Schools' teachers in a month-long program of workshops and lectures taught by faculty at Moi University in Kenya, one of IUPUI's strategic partners. The seminar will take place in Kenya during summer 2009.
The aim is to establish a sustainable network of key constituencies in central Indiana and counterparts in Kenya that carry forward a collaborative approach to teaching about Africa long after the seminar is over. The seminar will foster an understanding of Africa that comes from direct experience, dialogue with Africans and collaborative service activities. It will advance teaching about the continent of Africa, the country of Kenya and the Swahili language for two major public educational systems while establishing an interdisciplinary platform for undergraduate study abroad at Moi University.
Building upon the Indiana-Kenya Partnership in HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and recovery, the project will engage the serious issues now facing the continent, while simultaneously recognizing the significant social and cultural resources Africans are bringing to bear on these issues. Participants will produce faculty development materials, enhance existing courses and establish new ones -- including a college-level study abroad program and introductory Swahili. The 14 participants have been selected from IUPUI and IPS with an eye toward those best able to multiply the effect of what they have learned by spreading it to others, in the best position to incorporate teaching on Africa into programs or courses and with greatest potential for continuing to network with each other and with Kenyans after the seminar is over.
IUPUI was awarded the 2009 Andrew Heiskell Award for Innovation in International Education for developing sustainable partnerships to unite faculty across disciplines.
Seventy-five percent of the total program costs will be funded by GPA, with the remaining 25 percent to come from non-federal government sources. Dawn Michele Whitehead, director of curriculum internationalization, is the project director. Stephanie Leslie, director of study abroad, is assistant director. The group will be in Kenya July 6-Aug. 6.
