Chilean, French students coming to Eastern Oregon University
By Dick
Mason
The La
Grande Observer
Published: June 9, 2004
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OBSERVER/DICK MASON
Eastern Oregon Univerity President Khosrow Fatemi (right) and Teodoro Ribera (center), the president of Autonoma Del Sur University in Chile, sign an exchange program agreement Monday. Looking on is Luis Rojas of Autonoma Del Sur University.
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La Grande -- The past four days have been eventful -- and global -- at Eastern Oregon University.
During this span, Eastern entered into exchange program agreements with universities in France and Chile.The agreements involve Montpellier Graduate School of Management in Montpellier, France, and Autonoma Del Sur University, based in Temuco, Chile.
The exchange programs have been established under the direction of Khosrow Fatemi, EOU's new president. Each program will involve about 10 students a year from Eastern and 10 students from the universities in Chile and France. Fatemi believes strongly in the value of foreign exchange programs after starting successful ones at the past two schools he was at: the Imperial Valley Campus of San Diego State University, and the Graduate School of International Trade and Business Administration at Texas A & M International University.
"The students (at EOU) who have not not traveled abroad before.will come back much more confident than before. Some will be different people (and) much more sure of themselves," Fatemi said, who headed the SDSU Imperial Valley campus for five years before taking EOU'¹s reins in May.
Fatemi renewed ties with a longtime friend Yvon Desportes, director of international relations and research at Montpellier, to establish EOU's French exchange program.
Fatemi and Desportes have worked together over the past 15 years. At the last two universities he was at, Fatemi developed exchange programs involving Montpellier, with help from Desportes.
"They were very effective exchange programs," Fatemi said. EOU students will attend Montpellier for a semester, or a three-week segment. Students from Montpellier will attend EOU for a full year. Eastern students will not have to know French to participate in the exchange.
"They don't have to be able to speak French since we offer all our courses in English," said Desportes, who was in La Grande Saturday.
The students from Montpellier who will come to EOU will be business majors. EOU students, though, will not have to be business majors to go to Montpellier.
Meanwhile, the agreement for an exchange program with Autonoma Del Sur was signed Monday by its president, Teodoro Ribera, and Fatemi.
Autonoma Del Sur has 7,000 students and is the the sixth largest private university in Chile with campuses in Santiago, Temuco and Talco.
Eastern students will attend Autonoma Del Sur during summer term beginning in 2005. Students from Chile will come to Eastern during the winter, which is Chile's summer.
"We want to open up the perspective of our students culturally and linguistically. We want them (our students) to get to know the American way of life," Ribera said.
Eastern students will not have to know Spanish to participate in the program, said Luis Rojas, Automan Del Sur's director of teacher education.
"Most of our students will be happy to serve as translators to help," Rojas said.
As part of the program, EOU faculty will go to Chile for six-week teaching stints. Faculty members will spend two weeks at each of its campuses. Their teaching load will be concentrated in the first three days of each work week. This will allow the professors to spend four days a week learning about the culture and way of life in Chile.
In the future, Fatemi hopes to establish more foreign exchange programs. He is currently talking with universities in Poland, Germany, Finland and Uruguay about setting up similar exchange programs.
