Left: UniQ faculty, administrators, and the seven students receiving full scholarships through the "MSSU-UniQ Partnership" pose with U.S. Ambassador to Haiti, Janet A. Sanderson.

In July, 2008, The Robert W. Plaster School of Business Administration at Missouri Southern State University (MSSU) was awarded $552,000 in funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) for the purpose of contributing to the economic renewal of Haiti by strengthening the teaching of business in the areas of finance and accounting in that country. The award, which was made through Higher Education in Development (HED), supports economic and social development through funding support by USAID's Bureau for Economic Growth, Agriculture, and Trade/Office of Education (EGAT/ED), which is mobilizing the expertise and resources of U.S. and local higher education institutions to address critical developmental challenges worldwide. MSSU's local partner in Haiti is the Universite Quisqueya (UniQ), Port-au-Prince.

Through the Partnership, seven academically talented students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds are completing their degrees at MSSU. The scope of the project includes educating the students in fundamentals of U.S. and International methods of finance and accounting so they can bring this knowledge back to Haiti and contribute to its economic renewal. To this end, the educational program will include capstone internships at institutions located in Port-au-Prince such as the Haitian National Bank, Unibank, and the Fund for Industrial Development.