Haitian Partnership

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

April 24, 2008

Dr. Nii Adote Abrahams
(417) 625-9536

OR
Mr. Chris Moos
(417) 625-9703

 
JOPLIN, MO (SNS) – The Robert W. Plaster School of Business Adminstration at Missouri Southern State University will engage in a partnership with a university in Haiti, thanks to a major grant.

 

Higher Education for Development (HED), Washington, D.C., is awarding $552,000 to The Robert W. Plaster School of Business Administration (SOBA) at Missouri Southern State University with funding support by U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) for a partnership with University of Quisqueya (UniQ)in Haiti focusing on excellence in accounting and finance.

 

The award, which is part of the USAID’s continuing efforts to expand the role and impact of U.S. and international higher education institutions in worldwide social and economic development, will cover a period of three years. The MSSU partnership is designed to contribute to the economic renewal of Haiti by using the expertise of the MSSU SOBA faculty to strengthen the teaching of business at University of Quisqueya, Port-au-Prince.
 
Under the award, SOBA will partner with UniQ on curriculum development and offer an opportunity for seven talented undergraduate Haitian students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds to complete their baccalaureate degrees in accounting and finance at MSSU.

 

In addition, the partnership will work on strengthening the quality of UniQ’s undergraduate degree program in finance and accounting, and on developing new instructional modules that increase the accounting program’s relevance to Haiti’s workforce needs. SOBA’s focus will also be on the areas of community workforce development and entrepreneurship, especially for Haitian women.

 

Through its international mission and emphasis on classroom teaching, MSSU excels in its commitment to provide a high quality of education to students. MSSU’s accounting program is one of the top in the state of Missouri, ranking first in the state among public institutions in number of graduates passing the CPA exam with only a bachelor’s degree in 2006. To learn more about MSSU and its programs, please visit http://www.mssu.edu.

 

This collaborative partnership 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 development challenges. For more information about how USAID has provided economic and humanitarian assistance worldwide for more than 40 years, please visit http://www.usaid.gov.

 

Higher Education for Development (HED) engages higher education institutions in the United States and abroad to advance social and economic development globally through human and institutional capacity building. HED assists the nation’s six major higher education associations and their members in partnering with USAID, as well as other development agencies and donor organizations. For more information about HED, please visit http://www.HEDprogram.org.

 

 

 

 

 

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