Collaborating with ITC

March2007 Vietnam 546

I spent the better part of Monday, March 12 visiting with the fine people at the Ho Chi Minh Information Technology College (ITC). By the afternoon we were ready to sign an MOU stating that we have a desire to work together and will continue to plan to attempt to offer programs in Business Administration, Accounting, and possible Nanotechnology to Vietnamese students who want a degree from a U.S. school.

The MOU really is just a first step in deciding whether weMarch2007 Vietnam 544 can find ways to collaborate with these programs. ITC wants to offer one year of English training to the students, followed by two years of completing our associate degree program in either business or accounting. During those two years of study, students would take LSC online courses for part of their studies and study abroad in Minnesota for the other two years. The exact makeup of those two years is yet to be determined, and might be decided on a student-by-student, at least regarding the mixture of online and onground coursework.

We still need to have a significant number of further communications about this project before we will know for sure whether anything can come of it. They are very eager to make this happen, but we will need to make sure that we all the difficult questions answered before we proceed. Also, LSC does not currently have any plans for a nanotechnology program, so I will be asking other schools in the system about their interest in a possible collaboration with ITC in this endeavor.

In the evening I had a pleasant dinner with my friends from SEAMEO, including Dr. Thinh (Director, seated at far right), Mr. Minh, and Ms. Duong. We went to a Chinese restaurant near my hotel where I had the pleasure, or at least the experience of eating sea cucumber for the first time ever. Everything else was very pleasant and we had a nice conversation about our future efforts to partner on different projects. Tomorrow is my last full day in Vietnam before I leave for home early Wednesday monring.

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