Agreement 4

Under Agreement 4 (January 2014–December 2015), UW–Madison expanded and deepened its engagement with SHSS and NU faculty, administrators, staff, and students through consultations, collaborations, exchanges, capacity building, and training opportunities.

SHSS Faculty/Staff Development, Collaboration, and Exchanges: The visiting scholars program, established in Agreement 3, was continued through week-long visits of eight NU faculty to UW and 8 UW faculty to NU and a summer-term teaching opportunity for one faculty member at NU. The SHSS dean and vice-dean engaged in professional development and capacity building of SHSS administration through visits to UW. Finally, in 2014 and 2015, the UW and NU teams jointly organized two Eurasian studies conferences at NU.   

Curriculum Development and Quality Assurance: The UW–Madison team provided consultation on the development of senior capstone courses in all SHSS departments and for graduate degrees in Eurasian Studies, Economics, and Political Science/International Relations. Additionally, the team shared best practices around designing and implementing online/blended learning courses. UW–Madison faculty and staff also coordinated professional development opportunities for NU faculty and staff focusing on institutional research, teaching and learning, quality enhancement, and educational technology innovation.

Support for Language Learning: UW specialists in second language acquisition and pedagogy provided continual professional development opportunities for Kazakh language faculty through on-site and distance workshops and consultations on curriculum development and assessment policies, practices, and instruments. UW–Madison hosted NU faculty to teach Kazakh language at the UW–Madison Central Eurasian Summer Studies Institute. The UW team also continued consulting on the development of a language center to support the English language writing and speaking needs of all NU students, staff, and faculty.

Library Development: Expanding on the work started with the previous agreements, the UW team continued providing consultation on library management and services, along with professional development opportunities for NU librarians seeking knowledge and experience about working in a research university. These opportunities took the form of semester study in Madison for two NU librarians in the UW School of Library and Information Studies and the sharing of expertise by two UW library administrators through participation in the annual NU Library conference. UW also began offering its Wisconsin TechSearch document delivery service to NU faculty and staff to obtain resources not available in the NU Library collection.

Student Life and Student Services: UW–Madison consulted, organized, and conducted training-related site visits for staff from the NU Career and Advising Center and academic advisors in SHSS and the School of Science and Technology (SST) with the goal of capacity building in these important student advising areas. These trainings were conducted for NU staff accompanying the 2014 and 2015 cohorts of NU students to UW as visiting international students. To read more about the summer school program, visit the Visiting International Student Program page.

Professional Development for NU Faculty/Staff: UW experts facilitated trainings and workshops for NU administrative/professional staff to learn international best practices in university registrar services, internal auditing, strategic planning, health and safety, and other areas of university administration. A UW Facilities Planning & Management (FPM) team conducted an assessment of research facility design and safety infrastructure at NU in fall 2014, which was then followed in spring 2015 by FPM-hosted tours and consultations focused on sharing best practices utilized in UW facilities.