Here we provide a concise description of each of these partnerships. (Addresses of Internet sites that contain additional information about these linkages are provided where possible.)

1. Developing Partnerships through Regional Cooperation within the Eastern Seaboard Association of Tertiary Institutions (esATI)

The Eastern Seaboard Association of Tertiary Institutions (esATI) is a multi-faceted consortium of eight institutions including the universities of Durban-Westville, Zululand (main and Umlazi campuses), and Natal (Durban and Pietermaritzburg campuses); the Mangosuthu, ML Sultan, and Natal technikons; and two national institutions - Technikon Southern Africa and University of South Africa (UNISA).

Building partnerships with higher education institutions in other countries is one of eight esATI projects aimed at deepening and strengthening collaboration among the member institutions and at promoting the goals of redressing existing inequities, restructuring the higher education system, and ensuring coordinated regional planning.

Five international partnership initiatives are underway: a graduate research cluster program with the University of California (Berkeley) and Michigan State University, collaborative efforts for student, staff, and faculty exchange in the areas of public administration, criminal justice, nursing, and mathematics with Northern Michigan University, a "black women in front-line management" facilitated by the Australia-South Africa Links Programme, a proposal for a forestry and agriculture project with the University of Oregon, and initiative to create a regional coordinated health sciences education program involving links with the University of California, Los Angeles.

Northern Michigan University has made a commitment of $100,000 to developing linkages with esATI institutions, which represents a major commitment for this institution. Cooperation in nursing and allied health fields is being developed with two nursing faculties and one technikon. Establishing a series of public administration internships in Casual/Natal and Michigan for graduate students also is being explored.

The research cluster program was developed initially between the University of California (Berkeley) and esATI and has been expanded to include MSU. Funding has been obtained from member institutions and several other sources to enable research collaboration in a thematic area among faculty in the eastern seaboard region and one of these U.S. institutions along with a dozen students. Preference is being given to research themes that are relevant to development problems in the region.

Although these partnerships organized through a consortium require consultation among members that may slow the process, they hold out the promise of working with a range of institutions, being relevant to the region, and being most cost-efficient and making fuller use of shared resources.

Web site: esATI homepage - http://www.esati.co.za/

2. One University and Multiple Partnerships - University of the North

The University of the North (UNIN) has entered into multiple partnerships with other higher education institutions in South Africa and with several U.S. and European institutions. UNIN is the largest of the historically disadvantaged universities in South Africa and faces a legacy of under-trained staff, inadequate resources, and a young and under-developed graduate program. UNIN also was in the forefront of the struggle for liberation and now has a strong commitment to the tasks of reconstruction and development.

UNIN has a large partnership encompassing 62 projects with the University of Pretoria (UP), a historically Afrikaner-language institution and one of the three largest research universities in the country. Relationships between UNIN and UP began several decades ago. In the early years, collaboration mainly consisted of UP staff members acting as external examiners for UNIN students.

The nature of the cooperation been UNIN and UP has changed and expanded dramatically in recent years, and now it includes all eight faculties at UNIN and nine of the 11 faculties of UP. Forty-one projects involve joint research, usually combined with co-supervision of graduate students. The remaining 21 projects include many teaching programs, including a curriculum development project which has earned national and international recognition. One of the large collaborative projects between UNIN and UP - a postgraduate business training program begun in 1998 - also involves the Baruch Business School of the City University of New York.

With other institutional partners, UNIN has pursued several innovations, such as the Edupark, the first joint institute where universities, technikons, and vocational institutes will provide programs at the same location. Another program involving a partnership with the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VUA) provides science and math education as well as academic literacy and study skills to students who wish to enter UNIN in these fields but do not have the necessary preparation. This program, called UNIFY (UNIversity Foundation Year), has been successful and has been adopted at the University of the Transkei as well.

UNIN has a small exchange between its Faculty of Agriculture and the Michigan State University (MSU) College of Agriculture and National Resources at MSU. Because of its exposure to MSU's land grant model, UNIN's Faculty of Agriculture has decided to establish a community outreach center. Several international linkages, including those with VUA and MSU, have been severely affected by a drop in funding by various government agencies.

Cooperation with other South African institutions, such as University of Pretoria, also has many challenges. Building equitable relationships is difficult between institutions with such historic disparities in staff training, research tradition, and resources as well as between individuals who may hold stereotypes based on these disparities. Also, it is difficult for UNIN to recruit and retain strong graduate students and staff because of its remote location when people now can gain access to the historically advantages institutions that have better infrastructure and resources.

Web site: University of the North http://www.bcs.co.za/unin/

3. Institutional Development at Technikon Northern Gauteng: Coordinated Efforts of Universities and Donors

The Technikon Northern Gauteng (TNG) has created a partnership with several tertiary institutions in the Netherlands which is funded by Netherlands development assistance and administered by the Netherlands organization for international cooperation in higher education (NUFFIC). This is a large-scale project, providing assistance amounting to 5.5% of the TNG's annual budget during 1997-2000. The collaboration is expected to last 10-15 years.

Three Dutch institutions are assisting with areas of their particular expertise. These are two universities of professional education (similar to technikons in South Africa) - the Hogeschool van Utrecht and Christelijke Hogeschool Nood Nederland, Leeuwarden - as well as one university - Maastricht Universiteit.

The Netherlands chose TNG to receive this assistance on the basis of TNG's strategic plan which defined its priority needs. The five areas of programming touch almost all structures of the TNG. They include academic staff development, middle management capacity building, improvement of the personnel department, quality assurance, and improvement of information technology. At TNG, many of the staff are barely qualified to teach at the B.Tech degree level, and they lack the training to undertake research or curriculum innovations. This program aims to help redress the inequity in higher education in South Africa by supporting institutional capacity building at one of the historically disadvantaged institutions.

The largest portion of the project is an academic staff development program conducted with Maastricht Universiteit It is focusing initially on the TNG faculties of engineering and food service and health. This program includes providing further formal and information training to staff, developing appropriate research skills, enhancing curriculum development capacity, adopting new teaching methods, and improving the addressing of requirements of industry and professional bodies.

4. Developing a Coalition to Preserve the History of the African National Congress: Educational Institutions, Governments and Foundations

An ambitious project is being developed to build capacity and facilitate coordination among the various South African archives, museums with South African heritage collections, and universities that provide training and support for current and prospective staff, along with several U.S. institutions with relevant expertise.

From South Africa, the collaboration likely will involve: the African National Congress Archives at the library of the University of Fort Hare; the liberation movement archives at the Center for Cultural Studies at the University of Fort Hare; the Mayibuye Center at the University of the Western Cape; the Robben Island National Museum; the heritage studies program administered jointly by the University of the Western Cape and the University of Cape Town; the South African History Archive and numerous other historical, political, and cultural collections and a graduate program in heritage studies at the University of the Witwatersrand; and the National Archives.

In the spring of 1999, a workshop is being planned in South Africa at which South African and U.S. collaborators will discuss how to coordinate the project, determine priorities and a working agenda, and identify immediate and long-term technological needs of the South African partners.

Several of the South African institutions already have begun to develop linkages with U.S. institutions to support their work and promote scholarly activities using these collections. The ANC Archives has signed agreements in principle for collaboration with the University of Connecticut's Thomas J. Dodd Center and Michigan State University (MSU).

The units of MSU working on facets of this collaboration include the College of Arts and Letters; African Studies Center; Consortium for Inter-Institutional Collaboration in African and Latin American Studies (CICALS); MATRIX, a center for developing applications of new technologies to teaching and research; and the MSU Museum. MSU is developing collaborative projects with Mayibuye Center/ Robben Island Museum, the Documentation Center at the University of Durban-Westville, and the University of Witwatersrand. MSU has agreed to provide computer servers to the ANC Archives and the Mayibuye Center, along with assistance in developing online exhibits. Through CICALS, MSU intends to involve a wide range of historically Black colleges and universities in this project. The Chicago Historical Society also will cooperate in these ventures with its breadth of resources in paper and photo archives and its unique experience in developing oral history projects.

Web sites: ANC Archives - http://www.lib.ufh.ac.za/library/anc-arc.htm
Mayibuye Center - http://www.uwc.ac.za/mayibuye/"

5. National Science Foundation - South African Collaboration in Science and Engineering

Since 1996, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has initiated several mechanisms of cooperation with South Africa in science and engineering. The NSF conducts this program in partnership with the Foundation for Research Development (FRD) (in the physical sciences) and the Center for Science Development (CSD) (in the social sciences). The Engineering Directorate of the NSF has being pursuing cooperation through joint research projects, workshops, and student exchanges.

The International Cooperative Research Grants program provides small grants to U.S. investigators to initiate collaborative projects with South African colleagues. Research has been initiated in the areas of ecology and environmental biology, chemical engineering, and geology and geophysics including a multi-disciplinary project on the Kaapvaal Craton in Southern Africa.

Workshops organized jointly by U.S. and South African investigators in both countries promote information exchange and discussion of future collaboration. Workshops have been held on multi-phase systems in chemical processing, energy and environment, mechanical engineering design education, intelligent systems in power electronics, the Southern African large telescope/Hobby-Eberly Telescope, Southern African land-atmosphere-biosphere interactions, and systemic reform in K-12 education.

The Engineering Graduate Student Exchange Program was established by the NSF and FRD in 1998 to support two-month visits in the U.S. or South Africa. It is a challenge to recruit black South African graduate students in particular because of the ban during the apartheid era on teaching science and engineering at institutions serving black students and because many black students currently in these fields are hired by private firms as soon as they complete their undergraduate degree. South African funding for participants is limited, also.

The Research Experiences for Undergraduates Program is available for U.S. undergraduate students to participate in research at South African institutions.

Web sites: NSF Engineering Directorate activities in South Africa - http://www.eng.nsf.gov/news/1997_News/BridgesOverSouthAfrica.htm
Engineering Graduate Student Exchange Program - http://www.imse.iastate.edu/~sausa/www/grad_ex_std.htm

6. A Partnership for Supplemental Instruction of New Student Populations: Institutions in the Eastern Cape

Five years ago, the University of Port Elizabeth (UPE) instituted a program of Supplemental Instruction (SI) in which senior students facilitate weekly sessions to assist first-year students with particular courses. This is not conceived of as a remedial program, and the focus is on high-risk courses, not high risk students. Learning and study skills are developed along with discussion of the content area.

This model of Supplemental Institution, where new students receive assistance from "near peer" older students, was developed at the University of Missouri - Kansas City. Now it is being used throughout the world. UPE was the first South African institution to adopt the model, and now it coordinates the spread of this method to other tertiary institutions in South Africa. Faculty and staff members from 53 South African institutions, including schools of nursing and colleges of education, have received training in this method.

In 1996, two faculty members at the University of Missouri-Kansas City obtained a "new initiatives" grant from their university to apply video-based SI in science and math courses with three institutions in the Eastern Cape: the UPE, Delta Motors Foundation, and Ethembeni Enrichment Center, where first-year university subjects are taught at an off-campus venue to students whose matriculation scores were not high enough for them to enter UPE.

Video-based SI has the potential to reach a much larger number of students than normal lecture classes, even those with SI or other types of supplemental tutorials. The videotaped lectures are interrupted periodically for assignments and discussion with students and facilitators.

Mathematics, accounting, physiology, and chemistry were chosen because they are "gatekeeper" courses to programs in business, nursing, and sciences. Early results showed that under-prepared students in the video-based supplemental instruction courses performed equally well or better than students in regular lecture courses in the first three courses, but less well in the chemistry course.

Web site: Center for Supplemental Instruction - http://www.umkc.edu/cad/si.htm

7. Partnerships of Two-year Colleges for Human Resource Development: Linkages with Midrand University

Midrand University (MU) is the first private, for-profit tertiary education institution in South Africa to be granted university status by the South African Department of Education. MU has entered into partnerships with both overseas and domestic partners, including Santa Monica College and Kirkwood Community College in the U.S., both of which are public community colleges.

The partnerships with both institutions involve programs of study that include course work offered at the South African campus by local and visiting faculty plus an internship at the U.S. institution. Offering course work locally makes the program more affordable to South African students, while offering an internship in the U.S. provides a foreign experience.

Santa Monica College is cooperating with MU in three programs: a business education program in interior design (include textiles); computer technology; and animation graphic design. Each of the programs also involves a corporate partner.

Kirkwood Community College, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, is developing a two-year horticulture program with MU. Kirkwood has a large number of international students - mostly from Latin America and Eastern Europe - as compared with other community colleges, but this is its first venture in South Africa.

8. Building a Long Term Linkage: University of the Western Cape and University of Missouri - Columbia

The cooperative program in teaching, research, and service between the University of the Western Cape (UWC) and University of Missouri (UM) was the first formal agreement ever developed between a historically black South African university and a U.S. university. It was initiated in 1986, soon after the Board of Curators of the University of Missouri adopted a divestment policy. The international linkage was significant for UWC faculty because it occurred during the period of the international cultural and academic boycott.

The partnership has been based on strong commitment from the leadership of both institutions and has been maintained for 13 years through four changes in leadership at both UM and UWC. This is by far the largest international linkage program of UM, and the Board of Curators has allocated continuing funds for its operation.

A faculty exchange program in dozens of academic disciplines has been a centerpiece of this cooperation. From 1986-1998, there have been 283 visits, which UM hosting 144 faculty members from UWC and UWC hosting 128 UM faculty members. A significant result of the collaboration was the establishing of an International Relations Committee by the Senate of UWC and the adoption of a Senate policy on international academic visits.

The linkage between UM and UWC has involved distinguished professors from both institutions. UM faculty have worked in South Africa in fields such as conflict resolution; the role of sport in the Robben Island prison; gender, race, and class; and joint teaching of an English class via the Internet.

The University of Missouri's long-term commitment to UWC also has strengthened its relationship with Lincoln University, a historically black university in Missouri which also has established links with UWC.

In 1998, a new program of student exchange has been added to the UM/UWC linkage. The first U.S. students to study in academic courses at UWC were recruited for the September 1998 semester.

Web site: University of Missouri South African Education Program - http://www.system.missouri.edu/urel/main/second/wsaep.htm [an error occurred while processing this directive]