Developing International Partnerships

I just returned from a fantastic, but all too brief, trip to England and the Czech Republic. I was traveling with my School of Creative Arts colleagues Jim Lentini, Dean; Susan Ewing, Associate Dean; and John Weigand, Chair of Architecture and Interior Design. Our goal was to meet with faculty at the University of Lincoln (Lincoln, England) and the University of West Bohemia (Pilzen, Czech Republic) to see their facilities and to discuss possible partnership opportunities. In fact, we have worked with these two institutions in various ways for several years, and we are looking to build on these collaborations into something larger and more consistent.

Some of the possibilities we discussed included student and faculty exchanges, setting up special summer schools for Miami students, faculty participation in the summer school programs that are already established, joint faculty research and exhibitions, joint partnerships in curriculum such as International Masters, etc. The ideas were certainly flowing and it’s amazing how many commonalities we discovered in terms of how these institutions are evolving in sync with Miami.

Keep watch for opportunities for faculty and students to collaborate with these two excellent universities. In fact, both schools are constructing new Art and Design buildings that are either online now, or will be next year. Their facilities and faculty are extremely high quality and we are honored to be able to develop these partnerships with them.