Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 8, 1992 TAG: 9202080136
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: MADELYN ROSENBERG
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
LEARNING IN A SHRINKING WORLD
Walter J. Kamba speaks in a low, husky voice, tinged with the melodious accent of his African country.He leans across the table at Virginia Tech's Donaldson Brown Center and says, "There is a great deal to learn from each other."
Kamba is speaking in the broad sense - broader than the people in the room, broader, even, than an exchange between Americans and his native Zimbabwe, independent for just more than a decade now. He is talking about all people.
"I certainly believe that in a shrinking world, international cooperation is of the utmost importance," said Kamba, former president of the University of Zimbabwe. He now is vice chancellor of the International Association of Universities.
Institutions, Tech among them, are forming what Kamba calls "links" - exchanges of faculty, students, research and ideas. In some cases, even textbooks.
"That is something we are short on," Kamba said.
The University of Zimbabwe already has links with Michigan State and Penn State, and universities in Canada and Europe. By the end of the year, he hopes, there will be a link with Tech as well.
"This morning I had discussions with people from veterinary science, education technology, urban planning . . . a whole range," Kamba said.
The links, once formed, seem to last. A president from a university in Kenya recently agreed to start a second phase in its tie with Tech.
"If it is to have results, to make an impact, it needs to go on for a fairly long time," Kamba said. "We hope to start this new link by June. It is the question of everything in the jigsaw puzzle fitting in."
For Zimbabwe, the greatest gaps now are in science and technology, Kamba says. He hopes to alleviate some of those gaps through this exchange.
For Tech's part, there are things to be learned as well.
For one thing, he said, Virginia's universities are learning to operate on shrinking budgets. In Africa, universities have had recent budget cuts of as much as 58 percent.
"Yet, it remains operative," he said. "If Americans were to suffer cuts like these, the universities would almost come to a halt. It will be interesting for America to see how we operate."
Americans also have much to learn from the way Africa solves some of its problems, Kamba said.
"The world is so interdependent now. We have a lot to learn from our colleagues."
Agreed, said S.K. De Datta, who heads Tech's office for research and international development. The offices are small, he says, "but the scope is very large."
It is through this office in Litton Reaves Hall that Tech has set up links similar to the one planned for Zimbabwe, links with universities and institutions in Chile and China, Egypt and Thailand, Honduras and Kenya, Guatemala and others.
"We have a worldwide network," De Datta said.
The contacts help project Tech to the rest of the world and interest people in coming to Blacksburg to teach and learn.
"The world is getting smaller," De Datta said. "The more information we share, the more we can project Tech's strength and Virginia's strength to the rest of the world."
The office on international development opened in 1971. The focus then was mostly on agriculture; the links with developing countries who needed help combating hunger and drought.
In the late 1980s, though, the office changed its focus to include other disciplines and developed nations. There were other issues to be discussed, De Datta said, issues that effected everyone.
"Environmental issues, for instance," he said. "The global climate change, the ozone layer. What's happening in the developing world will affect the climate and environment in the United States. So you see that what others do affects us, what we do affect others."
Perhaps the most important part of the program, De Datta said, is allowing the students to interact with professors who have seen the world firsthand.
"Then our students are better prepared to face the new world order we are starting to face, and that we will face in the coming years," he said. "American students will not be strange to world changes. They will be able to compete with the rest of the world."