LONG TERM TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE

      The UMES international development experience began in 1980 with a multi-year award to UMES by the Agency for International Development (AID) for the Title XII University Strengthening Grant Program. This six-year grant (1980-1986) was a faculty and staff preparedness program designed to undertake technical assistance on behalf of AID in developing countries. The success of the grant was predicted on the basis of the potential of UMES; this potential bore fruition eighteen months later when UMES became a member of a university consortium, composed of Southern Illinois University- Carbondale (SIUC) and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). The contract was for an agricultural research and extension project in Zambia (called ZAMARE), which lasted over nine years.

     UMES provided the soybean-breeder specialist (two faculty members over a six year period) and the Chief-of-Party for the agricultural research/extension project in Zambia during the first five years of the grant. During the project's life, several opportunities arose which facilitated overseas exposure for UMES faculty and staff and the genesis of campus internationalization. Short-term expertise was  provided to the project in library networking, management problem solving, and tailored hands-on training workshops by four Agriculture faculty members. Biennial executive visits brought the President of the University and the Vice President for Academic Affairs to the field for observation. Eight participant  trainees obtained their B.S. degrees in Agriculture and one in General Studies from UMES. The project was cited in two AID Congressional Presentations as a success story in Africa.

     The UMES presence in Zambia encouraged two private firms to subcontract with UMES for a Human and Institutional Resources Development (HIRD) project in Zambia between 1986 and 1989. This second project, non-agriculture manpower training, was social and economic-science based.

     The UMES experience in Zambia along with the research institution building, training, and the partnership with educational institutions, all contributed to the design of an unsolicited proposal in agricultural development for West Africa. After several years of refinement, this proposal emerged in August 1986 as Tropical Root and Tuber Food Crops Research Project (ROTREP). The  eight-year project (1986-1994) was the first major AID long-term technical assistance project consisting solely of 1890 institutions. UMES was the lead institution for the consortium participants, which included Alabama A&M and Florida A&M Universities.  The project represented the largest single AID award to an HBCU institution at the time. UMES provided the Chief-of-Party, the agricultural economist, the breeder, and a tissue culture/root crops specialist for the project; and provided short-term technical assistance through several agriculture faculty, staff and administrators. ROTREP was funded at $12.2 million.

FACULTY EDUCATIONAL EXCHANGES

     A second overseas experiential trend was faculty-educational exchanges under the Fulbright-Hays programs. Between 1983 and 1994, fifteen faculty members went abroad for an academic year or summer, primarily to Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. The majority of these faculty members were from Departments in Agriculture, Natural Sciences, the Fine Arts and Professional Studies.

     By the late 1980's, faculty professional travel and study, independent of development activities, were reaching into Western Europe, Eastern Europe, and the former Soviet Union, Taiwan, and the People's Republic of China. Host governments and the USDA were the major sponsors of these ventures.

SHORT-TERM OVERSEAS TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE

     Independent of the long-term project assistance, short-term development activities had begun by the mid-1980's. From 1984 through 1994, UMES received six different competitive grants under the HBCU Research Program of USAID. Two administrative consultations for the AID missions in Cameroon (1986), and Burkina Faso (1988) were conducted. These activities strengthened the West African geographical connection.

PARTICIPANT TRAINING

     The fourth primary activity of the 1980's was the building of a capability in participant training. From the early to mid-1980's, there were only a handful of short-term program trainees at UMES. By the end of the decade, the number of trainees was increasing as well as the range of country of origin. The scope of activities included intensive subject matter programs, observations/study tours and field trip sites for USDA-Washington based short courses. Between 1980 and 1993, there were over 87 sponsored short-term trainees at UMES, and over 115 scientists, technicians and administrative support staff that participated in short-term workshops conducted by UMES at project field sites in Zambia and Cameroon.

     A similar evoluntionary pattern paralleled the experience with the degree-program trainees. By 1989, their scope of training expanded to include graduate education, as well as undergraduate education in Environmental Science, Computer Science, Marine Science, and Hotel and Restaurant Management. The country of origin training participants expanded beyond Africa to encompass the regions of the Middle East, Central America, and the Caribbean.