In a new partnership formed between AUB and the University of Hawaii (UH) aimed at revitalizing Iraq’s higher education in agriculture, AUB hosted 70 Iraqi academics from the University of Mosul and the University of Dohuk at a four-day workshop that was held in West Hall in February. The two universities, which specialize in agricultural education, are expected to play a significant role in furthering Iraq’s agricultural development. The AUB-UH partnership covers a five-month $150,000 project, whose goal is to provide workshops and research opportunities to faculty and graduate students from the two Iraqi universities, said Shadi Hamadeh, AUB chair of Animal Sciences. UH’s other regional partners are the University of Jordan and the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), which is based in Aleppo, Syria. UH was awarded a 21-month $3.77-million project by the US government in October 2003 to help rebuild Iraq’s agricultural academic sector. The project, which is called the Agricultural Higher Education and Development Project (AHEAD), is one of five USAID-funded projects aimed at establishing partnerships between American and Iraqi universities that are intended to revitalize and modernize Iraq’s institutions of higher learning, said Samir El-Swaify, director of AHEAD, who overviewed the project to a full house of academics at the opening of the workshop on February 22. While AHEAD will focus on agricultural higher education, the other four projects will be devoted to a variety of other academic fields. Some 50 universities had submitted proposals in response to a call for tender issued by the US government. Provided that funds become available, AHEAD will receive two one-year extensions once the first implementation phase ends in June, said El-Swaify. According to Nuhad Daghir, dean of the Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences (FAFS), this new partnership falls under the objectives that were laid down when the faculty was founded in 1952. “When the Faculty of Agriculture was founded, it was meant to serve as a model for higher agricultural education in the region,” said Daghir, “as it was the first faculty of agriculture in the Near East.” At that time, the faculty was devised with the idea of generating knowledge through research, and then sharing this knowledge with local farmers through extension programs, explained the dean.
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