GMC News
In a 3-year Project for Excellence in Journalism and Media Education
Global Media Consultants Partners with the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and Qatar University
12/15/2006
Through a nearly $300,000 grant from the US Department of State, GLOBAL MEDIA CONSULTANTS, LLC is partnering with the University of Louisiana –Lafayette (UL) and Qatar University (QU) to support a three year partnership program between the Department of Communication at UL and Department of Mass Communication and Information Science at QU. This grant is one of four awarded this year by the Department of State's Middle East Partnership Initiative, totaling $1,160,000 for partnerships between colleges and universities in the United States and the Middle East. The US-Middle East Partnership Initiative was created in 2002 by the Bush administration to promote political openness, economic liberty, educational opportunity and the empowerment of women in the Middle East.
Dr. Mohamed Arafa, President of GLOBAL MEDIA CONSULTANTS, LLC is a co director of the Department of State grant, along with Dr. Philip Auter of University of Louisiana at Lafayette and Dr. Ashraf Galal of Qatar University. “My company is proud to be a US private partner in this program for excellence in journalism media education. It is willing and ready to put its many years of academic and professional experience in the Middle East, and the nation of Qatar in particular, to good use in the coordination, and implementation of the various activities of the partnership program,” said professor Arafa who founded and chaired the Mass Communication Department during his nine year tenure at Qatar University in 1990s.
The focus of the UL-QU partnership is on enhancing the emerging Mass Communication Department at QU. Key elements in this enhancement include the review and reconfiguration of the mass communication curriculum; expanding the Department’s capacity to offer new courses; integrating new communication technologies into the classroom, and student and faculty exchange between the partnering institutions. Faculty from both institutions will also work on collaborative research into journalism and mass communication issues of importance to the Middle East, and attend conferences where scholarly issues of media education and press freedom will be discussed and outcomes disseminated.
Global Media Consultants, LLC has been working closely with Qatar University on assessing and enhancing the quality of its mass communication program. In June 2006, it signed a Consulting Agreement with the University to provide it with services for reconfiguring its mass communication curriculum; assisting its Mass Communication Department in interpreting established quality standards; guiding its process of seeking accredited status; and tracking and assessing progress in achieving the Department’s Self-study, required for accreditation.
The three partnering institutions including Global Media Consultants, LLC will provide about $348,000 in in-kind contributions to the three year partnership. Global Media Consultants, LLC contributions will specifically focus on supporting the process of helping QU review its mass communication curriculum and reconfigure it to meet the nation’s evolving communications needs. It will help set a collaborative research agenda, and design and implement relevant courses and workshops. Additionally, it will assist with the student exchange activities by helping students from the two partnering universities learn, through cultural sensitivity workshops/orientation, how to access each other’s culture, and how to read the other culture on its own terms. “I firmly believe that, through these activities, communications students at both QU and LU will be made ready to become facilitators of the inter-cultural dialogue that today’s world requires,” Dr. Arafa explained.