History of MSU Partnerships

The MSU African Studies Center gives high priority to cooperation with African scholars and institutions. It therefore acts as a coordinating body for research and teaching affiliations with academic institutions in Africa. These include the following:

Four Historical Partnerships

University of Nigeria at Nsukka (UNN)

The origin of the MSU interest in Africa resulted from more than 200 MSU faculty man and woman years working there with Nigerians to found UNN, the first U.S. land-grant type university in Africa. Sadly, the university was overrun by the Nigerian Civil War in the late 1960s. The MSU linkage was in abeyance from the late 1960s at the time of the collapse of the Biafran civil war until 1990, when relations were formally renewed with a visit by MSU President DiBiaggio, Dean Lim, a Trustee, and David Wiley, an honorary degree was awarded to President DiBiaggio by Vice Chancellor Ikoku.

Addis Ababa University (Ethiopia)

Ethiopia's leading university has exchanged faculty and graduate students with MSU in Ethiopian studies, history, agriculture, anthropology, sociology, geography, computer science, the university libraries, and other fields. MSU and AAU kept this linkage operational from the late 1960s, when MSU was the coordinator of the MUCIA-Haile Selassie I University linkage, through the civil war in the 1970s when most other Western contacts were lost to AAU, to the present. In the early 1980s, the linkage was supported by a U.S. Information Agency University Affiliation Grant, and has been supported by MSU, AAU, and Scandinavian funding since that time. The linkage has supported the interests of a number of MSU faculty and students focusing on Ethiopia. In the 1990s, the linkage has been strengthened with projects on Internet technology and with AAU's hosting of three MSU-Ford Foundation Minority Fellows for Immersion in African Studies.

University of Zimbabwe (Zimbabwe)

This MSU relationship, dating from Zimbabwe's creation in 1980, may have become the largest U.S. university linkage in Africa, with more than 200 collaborative publications (articles, chapters, reports, books, and dissertations) among the more than 600 faculty and students participating in various exchanges 1980-2000. The broad collaboration with the UZ includes the Faculties of Agriculture, Education, Veterinary Science, Medicine, Social Science, Arts and Letters, and the Library. Student exchange was developed between the Veterinary Faculties as well as general academic-year and summer study abroad programs for MSU undergraduates, arranged in conjunction with the MSU Office of Overseas Study.

Université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar (UCAD)

In 1987-88, MSU and the former University of Dakar (now UCAD) began their cooperation with a series of projects in historical studies. Dating from the 1960s, a number of faculty and postgraduate students entered into exchanges in history, political science, sociology, library (including a current microfilming cooperation), and literature and film. In 2001 and 2002, a delegation of senior UCAD officials, lead by the Rector and several deans of faculties, visited MSU to begin an enlarged project of cooperation. Previously in Dakar, MSU had developed a long-standing cooperation in agriculture and rural development with the Institut Senegalaise de Recherché Agricole, the Institut Fondamental d'Afrique Noire (IFAN), and the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA).

New Partnerships in the 1990s and beyond

University of Dar es Salaam (Tanzania)

Individual MSU faculty and graduate students have long had exchanges with their counterparts at the University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM), and a number of UDSM and Sokoine University faculty have obtained their Ph.D. degrees at MSU. In 2001-02, the linkage has been significantly increased with a new partnership agreement for the hosting at UDSM of MSU-Ford Foundation Minority Fellows, the exchange of faculty for linkage planning, and a variety of other activities. In June 2002, five UDSM members of their Institutional Transformation Programme and the Vice Chancellor were in residence at MSU for more than a month for a period of writing and reflection on UDSM transformation

University of Mali

Established in 1996, the University of Mali and its precursors have linked with MSU in collaborative scholarship and service for several decades. Faculty in Agriculture and Natural Resources, Arts and Letters, and African Studies have developed partnerships with Malians and trained a number of Malian postgraduate students. In the new millenium, MSU and the University are building collaboration in natural resources, history, Internet technology, plant breeding, biotechnology, integrated pest management, animal nutrition, renewable energy sources, water pollution, and greater integration of agricultural economics and information technology, including the internet into their reseach programs. For infomation on activities in agriculture, see http://www.msu.edu/user/staatz/university_of_mali/index.htm.

Other African universities with which MSU has substantial faculty and student linkages include:

Other Relationships

A number of MSU faculty have relationships with a many African associations, non-governmental organizations, and community-based associtions, e.g. Association of African Universities, African Academy of Science, Association of African Political Science, as well as a number of research institutes, e.g. CODESRIA, OSSREA, IFAN, ILRAD, ILCA, and IRI; and many individual faculty and departments.

MSU African Studies Center core faculty are involved in research projects in affiliation with universities and institutes throughout Africa.

Further information on linkage programs can be obtained from the African Studies Center.

A US Department of Education Title VI-Funded African National Resource Center