UT Administrators to Travel to Cuba to Build Educational Partnerships

The University of Tampa has been selected as one of 12 schools in the U.S. by the Institute of International Education (IIE) to participate in the 2015 International Academic Partnership Program Cuba cohort, which will enhance UT’s knowledge of partnership building, higher education in Cuba and campus internationalization.

As part of the partnership program, David Stern, UT’s provost, and Marca Bear, associate dean of international programs, will travel to Cuba Oct. 24–31 to learn more about the current state of higher education in the country and explore potential partnership opportunities.

Stern said UT is honored to be one of the 12 schools selected for this delegation.

“We look to build on Tampa’s historic ties to Cuba, and our current relationships with Cuban scholars and the Center for José Martí Studies in Havana, to establish opportunities that will be beneficial to our students, faculty and the larger community,” Stern said.

UT has been promoting cultural and academic exchanges with Cuba for more than five years, and this year’s program of Cuba-related activities is already underway. These include a presentation by Carlos Alzugaray Treto, a Cuban career diplomat, historian and internationally recognized scholar of international relations, on Nov. 3, a study tour this spring sponsored by the Sykes College of Business and a major international conference on José Martí in April.

In addition, UT has offered students professor-led travel courses to Cuba, and, in 2014, the national championship UT baseball team became one of the few collegiate teams to travel to Cuba to play club teams and tour the country.

The delegation is part of a broader IIE Cuba Higher Education Initiative, which seeks to reinvigorate higher education engagement between the U.S. and Cuba in light of the opening of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

As a result of the program, participating institutions may develop partnerships with counterparts in Cuba, engaging in collaborative activities such as faculty exchange, student exchange, study abroad programs, joint research and joint conferences.

In addition to UT, the universities taking part in this historic delegation are Associated Colleges of the Midwest; Central Washington University; Indiana University; Lehman College, CUNY; Oberlin College; Rutgers University; SUNY New Paltz; University of Arizona; Montclair State University; Virginia Commonwealth University and West Texas A&M.

UT is also proud of its commitment and achievements in international education with our progress made in the IIE campaign, Generation Study Abroad, which sets a national goal of doubling the amount of U.S. undergrads who study abroad by 2020. UT, as part of the Tampa Bay Trade and Protocol Council, was recently recognized by IIE as an outstanding contributor toward increasing international exchange and building a globally minded workforce in Tampa Bay.