Here’s a list of some of the reasons this is such an awesome opportunity for everyone involved. You can probably imagine other, more personal reasons to become engaged.
- We will improve existing UBC courses through collaboration with deliberate and thoughtful partners who have demonstrated a highly evidence-based and student-centric educational perspective. They will also bring important geographical and cultural contexts to these courses. This is a truly unique opportunity to enhance courses in EOAS, Geography and other departments.
- This project will leverage the reputations of EOAS, Geography and other departments at UBC for education innovation into new international settings and help expand UBC’s highly regarded intellectual and academic influence into emerging global settings.
- It will enable UBC to retain and further develop science education experts, enhancing our leadership and scholarship in science education.
- The project will enhance HQP (highly qualified personnel) at all levels from students to faculty, including the potential to gain international experience for those involved. For example, we will be engaging undergraduate students and providing them with meaningful service and experiential opportunities.
- Relationships that will develop between UBC and UCA’s existing and future faculty and partners will grow, opening windows of opportunity for both institutions to cross-fertilize research and education influence in the Central Asian Region.
- There is also significant potential for scholarly science education research.
- Our Departments – and UBC in general – will also benefit from partnering with one of the most experienced, respected and effective development agencies in the world. By working with and for the highly respected and successful AKDN, we will gain experiences regarding ways and means of supporting and partnering with international intellectual organizations.
- This kind of effort is “the right thing to do”. Education is central to addressing all manner of local, regional and global inequalities, and we are honored to have been invited to contribute. And we can do it without compromising our other important research and educational mandates.
This roughly 3-year project has been structured explicitly to avoid encumbering UBC research faculty while encouraging participation and engagement to whatever extent desired. The mutually approved budget was developed based on cost-plus-risk-contingency and covers personnel, travel and training for new UCA instructing faculty. The project is governed by a contract developed by EOAS, Geography, UBC Legal Counsel and UCA that was signed by UBC’s and UCA’s presidents on January 10th, 2017.
This project is uniquely UBC’s but other components of UCA’s new undergraduate programme are being developed by analogous arrangements between UCA, U of Toronto, Seneca College, University of Victoria and other prominent international partners.
For further details please contact the project coordinator (Personnel menu).