english version of draft ucla-ucad project document

8/9/2019 English Version of Draft UCLA-UCAD Project Document

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Summary concept paper:

Proposed partnership between UCLA, UCAD and EREV

Introduction:

The University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) and its partners, Earth Rights Institute (ERI), Los

Angeles, and ERIs Dakar office, Earth Rights Ecovillage Institute (EREV) have discussed with the

University Cheikh Anta Diop of Dakar (UCAD) their interest in developing a joint UCLA-UCAD

Masters program in Senegal, to be co-accredited by both institutions. UCAD has accepted this proposal

as an idea worthy of further exploration and development. This document summarizes conversations held

on this topic before and during the visit to UCAD of Professor Andrew Apter, Director of UCLAs

African Study Center in preparation for a meeting next week between Annie Goeke, representative of

UCLA and Director of ERI, representatives of UCAD and other proposed partners of this initiative.

Overall Objective:

To create a UCLA Masters program in Sustainable Development co-accredited within the UCAD system.This English language Anglo-Saxon program would follow primarily US academic procedures and

regulations, and would be funded largely by UCLA student tuitions. It also would be cross-cultural,

enrolling equal numbers of Senegalese and American students:

Specific Objectives:

For UCLA , it would potentially become the Masters program of the Department of International

Development Studies (IDS). Now an undergraduate program, IDS enrolls about 700 students and has

expressed an interest in developing a Masters program.

For UCAD , the program would serve the Senegalese university system in the role of a "laboratory"

for the L.M.D. transition to the anglo-saxon system, and an opportunity to pilot bilingual education.

It would provide opportunities to learn and experiment with the administrative procedures of US

higher education and to adapt US teaching strategies to the needs of national development. It also

would contribute English language materials not readily available in the francophone system to

UCADs existing programs in education for sustainable development.

For EREV , it would permit the contribution and further development in a national context of 10 years

of experience with the educational approach known as "University Community Service Learning."

This model recently was selected by USAID for its new partnership program with the University

Campus Rural Bambey. It engages university students in working directly with grass-roots

community members as trainers and action researchers. Working with vocational training

institutions, university community service learning is itself an advanced form higher education, using

action research and cascade methods of competency/results-based-learning. Becoming a part of

UCAD also would permit EREVs program to share its valuable experience in teaching and managing

mixed classes of Senegalese and international students, in cross-cultural programs that include a focus

on global citizenship, peace and justice.

For ERI , it would expand an already extensive African network of environmental and ecovillage

promotional, educational and advocacy activities, and would provide a model of collaboration that

might be applicable in other African countries in ERIs network.


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Possible Roles of partners:

UCLA : will recruit, enroll and monitor American students and the overall quality of the program.

UCLA also will propose the sustainable development curriculum and other courses, for discussion

and agreement with UCAD, and will make available to the program each academic term a professor

specializing in state of the art technologies in environmental sciences and policies and in areas of

sustainable development discourse in which French language publications are relatively unavailable

or inaccessible.

UCAD : will contribute to this program its agenda for the development of Senegals university

system, and the opportunity to participate in its existing activities. These range from excellent rural

campus initiatives to a wide variety of educational and collaborative research activities carried outwith European, North American and other universities development partners worldwide.

EREV : will provide initially, with the possibility of long-term continuation:

A core staff, including two Senegalese program directors, Academic Director Ousmane Aly

Pame (also Professor of English, UCAD) and Dr. Oumar Diene, action research instructor

and program director. They are largely responsible for the program's success over the past sixyears, during which they have gained extensive knowledge and experience in building strong

cross-cultural student groups dedicated to global citizenship and sustainable development,

action research in villages, and in the detailed design and management of academic

programs, administered according to US procedures. Also part of the core staff are a

computer science training program director/teacher and a computer mantenancier engineer.

A "sub-campus : including classrooms, a computer laboratory with 40 computers and other

infrastructure in the EREV building (equipped with WiFi and air conditioning), located in

Ouest-Foire, opposite the Ecobank in Yoff Layenne. EREVs 20+ homestay families, trained

and experienced in hosting American students since 1996, are located near the beach in theYoffs traditional fishing village.

The possibility of a rural campus in the Eco-Commune of Guede Chantier, of whichProfessor PAMEs the mayor, and thus well positioned to provide opportunities for students to

work in meaningful local development projects. ERI: will recruitment students, and

volunteers for the "Green Wall" and other citizen initiatives, raise funds, and link this

program to its network of individual and institutional partners around the world.

Next steps

Possible programs envisioned for the coming year will operate simultaneously on two levels:

undergraduate (L.) and Masters (M.) - with different academic requirements.

Renewal of this years summer program: UCLA and EREV will set as a goal to repeat this years eight

week summer program in 2011, formally linking it to UCAD. Next years program would be modified to

take into account important lessons learned from this first years experience. Never the less, the scopeand the accomplishments of this years program are worth noting for future reference. This first edition of

a UCLA Travel Study Program enrolled 52 students (23 Senegalese and 29 U.S.). Of this number, 19

were Americans formally inrolled by UCLA; 19, Senegalese students enrolled by EREV; and 14 wereenrolled in a Masters level Practicum. The Practicum students were coordinators-in-training (CIT) and

Instructors-in-training (IIT), with an academic program of their own.

The program conducted a Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) in Gud Chantier, during which 12 teams

of undergraduate students, led by CIT and IIT practicum students, worked with community members ofGuede Chantier and collected data in the following areas below:


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1. conventional agriculture

2. livestock

3. womens organic market gardening

4. fishing and fish farming,

5. food security and nutrition,6. Entrepreneurship and Value Chains,

7. Expansion of piped water8. Education

9. Sociodemographic factors

10. Climate Change

11. Gender and

12. cultural ecology.

Introduction of a UCLA quarter coinciding with the second semester of UCAD academic year

It is possible to envision a full UCLA academic year with three trimesters in reasonable phase with

UCADs academic calendar. But this would be difficult to put in place before 2012. One trimester might

commence with UCADs October term and run through December, with a second from about March 23 to

June 10. A final trimester could follow from July through September, perhaps coinciding with a Travel

Study Program. A goal in these calculations would be to permit students regularly enrolled in either

UCLA or UCAD to participate in the individual trimesters of the joint program without interfering with

their continuing studies.

english version of draft ucla-ucad project document

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