Languages: 
WSU FORGES NEW COLLABORATIVE PATHWAYS WITH IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY DURING INSTITUTIONAL VISIT
WSU’s Centre for Global Change (CGC) recently completed a productive institutional visit to Iowa State University (ISU), focused on exploring partnerships, collaborative projects, and other potential academic linkages between the institutions.
ISU, known for its strong community-oriented teaching and research programmes aligns with WSU’s focus on community impact making it an ideal institution to foster international collaboration.
Risk & Vulnerability Science Centre Acting Director, Prof Motebang Nakin, said: “The purpose of the visit was to explore opportunities for a formal partnership with ISU. This visit was initiated after attending the 4th National Global Change Conference, held in 2018 at Bolivia Lodge hosted by the University of Limpopo, where some of the professors from ISU attended the conference and were impressed by the work done by the CGCs.”
During the week-long visit, representatives from both institutions and the CGC consortium explored various ways to establish a formal partnership, aimed at enhancing academic and research capacity on both sides.
“We went the to forge initial talks for a formal partnership, student/staff exchange programme, Joint supervision of postgraduate students, Joint project collaboration, lectureship/professorship visit,” added Nakin.
He also added that other specific areas of collaboration that were discussed between the universities included collaborative research initiatives, innovation and entrepreneurship, visiting professorships, global networking for projects that require consortium and other teaching linkages.
“Through the ISU intense community engagement programme, WSU would benefit from lessons learnt on their Infusion of community engagement in the curriculum propelled through Extension Personnel. Most of these extension personnel possess a PhD qualification or are professors in their respective departments and faculty to which they are attached,” said Nakin.
Nakin also added that through this partnership, WSU would also benefit from the Interdisciplinary research that responds to the needs of the people as students work together with communities, businesses, non-profit organisations and government agencies to address problems and improve the quality of their lives.
“Overall, the trip was an insightful and engaging learning experience and highly productive. The sheer scale of the university and its infrastructure was impressive and highlighted the huge investment that the university makes into fostering high-quality teaching and learning and innovative research both locally and internationally,” said Nakin.
Nakin also said that, although the university mandates this as a land-grant institution in the United States of America, management makes a clear and directed effort to link the teaching and learning, and research programmes with community upliftment and societal benefit and inclusiveness.
In conclusion, he said that there was an overwhelming sense that ISU was keen to partner with the South African CGC consortium and other African institutions. Their strong agricultural focus and associated expertise in this discipline will benefit each institution in terms of sustainable development and improved livelihoods in rural areas.
By Anita Roji
