Introduction. James Madison University is a comprehensive coeducational institution of higher learning in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. JMU, with a student body of 13,714 students, offers 44 undergraduate and 27 graduate majors with 32 masters degrees and one doctoral program available in psychology. Drawing nearly one-quarter of its students from other states, JMU serves a diverse student body. The university enrolls approximately one of six applicants. The average SAT score of the freshman class for 1997 was 1,174. JMU has 11% minority enrollment, and the student body has about a 44:56 male/female ratio. JMU has established a reputation as an outstanding university and has been cited in numerous national publications as one of the nation's best choices among undergraduate public universities.

Since 1992, James Madison University has undertaken a number of efforts designed to strengthen educational institutions in Romania and Moldova. During this time, JMU has developed the contacts necessary for implementation of educational reforms that will meet the objectives of the USAID program on higher education partnerships. Our strongest relationships are with the Romanian American University (RAU) in Bucharest and the Technical University of Moldova (TUM) in Chisinau. JMU has already signed partnership agreements with both of these institutions. Over the past four years, through its various endeavors in support of educational efforts in Romania and Moldova, JMU has allocated over $100,000 from its own funds. This amount has been directed toward scholarships for Romanian and Moldovan students, the provision of books and other educational materials, visits by Romanian and Moldovan scholars to JMU, and faculty involvement in teaching in both nations.

While these agreements provide the operational basis for work between JMU, TUM, and RAU, our intentions cannot be translated into working programs without funding. The USAID support we are requesting will allow us to move our relationships beyond this initial phase of simply agreeing to work together. JMU has already made a significant financial contribution in bringing these institutions together as partners.

By focusing on Romania and Moldova, JMU is making a substantial commitment to assist this region in the development of a modern technological base that will support its efforts to recover from the impact of almost half a century of socialist mismanagement. In addition, the JMU effort concentrates on the development of programs in nutrition, tourism, applied technology and economic development, all of which are necessary if this part of the former communist bloc is going to be successful in its transition to a free and modern society.

Over a period of six years, James Madison University has worked to develop a relationship with various institutions and individuals in Romania and the Republic of Moldova. The purpose of this effort has evolved and encompasses broad concerns. This direction was set by President Ronald C. Carrier in his recent meetings with the Honorable Petru Lucinschi, President of the Republic of Moldova, Professor Ion Bostan, President of the Moldovan Technical University and Professor Ion Smedescu, President of the Romanian American University.

Significance of Romania and Moldova? Before examining JMU's initiatives with regard to this region, it is important to understand the significance of Romania and Moldova within the context of post-communist developments. One of the first points in answering the question of why we have chosen to work in this region is that it exhibits most of the problems which affect the Russian Federation, all of the other newly independent states (NIS) which have emerged from the former USSR and the post-communist states of Eastern Europe. Programs which are effective in dealing with Romanian and Moldovan problems will have relevance for all of the other East European countries. Second, while Western nations have directed enormous resources toward dealing with developmental issues for the Russian Federation, the size of that large nation defies an analysis of the results of those endeavors. As a more manageable region, Romania and Moldova represent an attractive laboratory for the development of programs designed to overcome the consequences of decades of mismanagement. By working in this community, we have greater access not only to decision-makers but to those who will implement programs. Consequently, our ability to see the results of our efforts and to learn from both success and failure is greatly enhanced. During the years of our involvement with Romania and Moldova, representatives of JMU have met with both of Moldova's post-Soviet era presidents as well as with numerous officials in both nations. These relationships give us a tremendous advantage in working here.

In order to advance our prospects in Moldova, JMU made arrangements for Dr. Vasile Nedelciuc, Member of Parliament, to spend a month on our campus in 1997 in order to discuss JMU prospects for helping the development of this region while also delivering a series of lectures for our students and faculty. The expenses for Dr. Nedelciuc’s visit were borne by JMU as part of its contribution to the establishment of a program of assistance and involvement in this region. In April, 1998, a faculty delegation from the Romanian American University will spend two weeks at JMU in an effort to develop strategies for coordinating their educational program with ours. JMU will cover their expenses while here as it also covered the expenses for another RAU delegation which visited JMU in the fall of 1996.

In order to create the base of institutional support necessary for our endeavors in Moldova, Dr. Carrier and Dr. Bostan drafted a teaming agreement between these two universities. According to the terms of this agreement, JMU and the TUM will share resources and work to develop the programs that will enhance the prospects for Moldova's recovery. In March, 1996, JMU and the RAU concluded a similar partnership agreement as a means of creating the basis for our endeavors in Romania. Under this agreement, there is an program that involves visiting Romanian professors at JMU, scholarships for Romanian students, and a sharing of educational experiences.

As an expression of JMU's determination to help educate a new technological elite for Romania and Moldova, Dr. Carrier provided scholarships to three promising Moldovan students who entered JMU in the fall of 1997 as well as for seven Romanian students. Since 1993, JMU has given support to 19 Romanians and Moldovans for study on our campus. It is Dr. Carrier's intention to continue this effort by bringing other young Romanians and Moldovans onto our campus in the future either for graduate or undergraduate studies in relevant fields.

In building on these relationships, JMU is proposing a series of classes that will address outstanding social issues and developmental problems in this region. This multidisciplinary program will be offered jointly by JMU and our partner institutions, the Romanian American University and the Technical University of Moldova. The classes will deal with the following concerns:

1. Problems of management after the dissolution of the Party-directed state apparatus. The best developmental programs will not be effective without effective administration. Therefore, we propose to offer a Public Managers Workshop which will bring together mid-level local government administrators and work to identify the challenges to effective management in post-communist society. Under the communist system, the emphasis in administration was placed almost exclusively on law. The official assumption was that if an administrator had access to copies of all relevant legislation, he could effectively perform all necessary administrative functions. There were few studies of organizational behavior and no courses dealing with the fundamental concepts of public administration.

In 1995, JMU's Department of Political Science created the Institute for Public Service in order to provide training an assistance to local administrative officials. The basic concepts to be stressed by the Institute's programs have relevance to the work of officials in both US as well as East European local government. Therefore, we propose that the Institute offer a class designed to assist Romanian and Moldovan local officials in providing basic constituent services. The course would be organized around a two week workshop which will function as both a focus group activity identifying needs that might be addressed by further assistance and training. The course would assist officials in dealing with the administrative problems identified and would explore ways of attacking those barriers to effective management. It would also make a significant contribution in meeting the USAID objective of strengthening democracy and good government.

This course will be taught by Professor Douglas Skelley who teaches Public Administration at JMU.

2. Economic development and entrepreneurship. While our general objective is to assist in creation of a technological elite, an important goal of the JMU programs in Romania and Moldova is to identify projects that can be undertaken by the people who have been the beneficiaries of training programs. This need will be addressed through a course on the development of entrepreneurial skills. It will focus on specific opportunities and will offer instruction on how resources can be translated into worthwhile business ventures that will enhance the region's developmental prospects.

JMU's experience in offering such a course for East European developmental needs began in 1992 when we offered our first entrepreneurship course through the Romanian American University. Since that time, 75 Romanian students have been enrolled in this course. Under our proposal, JMU would be able to broaden this course and make it available in both Romania and Moldova.

This course will be the responsibility of Professor Mark Usry of the JMU College of Business and Mr. George Blomstrom, who has taught the entrepreneurship course at the RAU since 1992.

3. The cultivation of existing resources and improvement of service. Since 1995, Professor David Ley, a senior JMU faculty member who teaches in our Hospitality and Tourist Management Department has traveled to Romania and Moldova three times. During these visits, he has developed a great appreciation of the resources enjoyed by both countries and understands how to cultivate those resources in such a way as to enhance Romanian and Moldovan economic developmental prospects. To this end, we propose that JMU offer a course on Tourist Management for students as well as current managers of tourist facilities.

Such a course would help create a cadre of trained individuals who would have a better understanding of how to transform the region's tourist potential into businesses that would enrich the local economies. Having the benefit of the services of a respected Tourism professional who already has experience in the region will enable us to offer a course that will be relevant to specific regional needs and will contribute toward an improvement of the region's service industries.

4. Nutritional needs and problems. A considerable amount of work has already been undertaken by Dr. Joanne Pearson, a JMU faculty member in the department of Health Sciences-Dietetic program, who, in May of 1995, presented a series of lectures to the students in the Food Science Department at the Technical University of Moldova and worked extensively with the faculty in the program to share ideas about education in the area of food and nutrition, dietetics, and health education. Since two of the administrators of that college of the university were leaving for a six-week training conference at the University of Connecticut on how to develop dietetic education programs, some of her time with the faculty and administrators was used to enhance their English language skills.

While in Moldova, Dr. Pearson also provided a series of nutrition and health education lessons to students in one of the lyceums in Chisinau, Moldova's capital city. The speed with which the youth of the nation were learning English was obvious in that setting. In the ninth grade classes the students had marginal knowledge of English, while the students in the eleventh grade class were very fluent in the language. This stood as a marked contrast to the college students who were only a few years older, but only a very few of whom had any knowledge of English at that time. The instructor for the college course, Dr. Eleonora Grozav, sequentially translated all of the food science lessons taught by Dr. Pearson into Romanian. In 1993, Dr. Grozav spent five weeks working with the faculty in the dietetic program at James Madison University. Because of her extensive prior involvement with JMU's programs, Professor Grozav has already been selected as the assistant instructor for Dr. Pearson's course and is prepared to assume a larger and more independent role. Her professional development represents the ideal that we hope to achieve in all of our instructional relationships in this program.

The voluntary participation by the representatives from the Technical University of Moldova in the dietetic program development training workshop in Connecticut in 1995 is an indication that the university is interested in expanding collegiate offerings to include the training of professionals in the field of dietetics. This is a professional field of study not presently available in Moldova, although there is training in the field of medicine at the medical schools in Chisinau, Orhei, and the State Medical University. Training in nutrition and dietetics includes learning the techniques of nutrition assessment. These skills are important not only for professionals who work with individual patients in health-care settings, but also for professionals who will plan and coordinate the collection of data from representative samples of individuals throughout the nation and then evaluate the collected data. Periodic assessments of the health and nutritional status of the people of a nation are an important component of determining the extent to which the health needs of the nation have been met, planning needed interventions in the form of health-related programs and services, and monitoring the effectiveness of those health-related interventions.

In order to advance these concerns, we propose to offer a course that will deal with nutritional issues. Through the course, Dr. Pearson will identify nutritional problems that can be addressed by public health workers in both Romania and Moldova. Participants in the course will also learn how to conduct nutritional assessments, an extremely important service that is presently in great demand throughout the region.

Dr. Pearson's course will address another crucial concern. The existence of a body of trained professional in the areas of nutrition and public health is essential to the development of a modern state. Training in these areas can be both at the collegiate level for students and as in-service education for the nation's current professionals. Her course will contribute to an expansion of the present course offerings at the Technical University of Moldova to include nutrition and health education is that these courses can be built upon the university's extensive science foundation. At present, there are many courses in chemistry, mathematics, and food science. The main additional requirement is for an expanded number of courses in the biological sciences.

While serving to advance current endeavors of both the TUM and the RAU, this course also meets an important USAID objective by helping build human capacity through education and training.

JMU's faculties in the Department of Health Sciences, including the program in dietetics, have had extensive experience in international programming in the health education fields. One of the faculty members is now involved in providing health education training in many parts of the world, including Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Latin America. Another faculty member has provided nutrition education to groups of professional and lay leaders in several parts of Central America. Such efforts are essential to the development of the technological elite that can deal with the problems of development.

While JMU will provide instructors for the initial course offering, the JMU professors will be joined by English speaking assistant instructors provided by the Romanian American University and the Technical University of Moldova. During the first year, the JMU instructors will take primary responsibility for the courses. In the second year, the assistant instructors will become responsible for the conduct of the courses. JMU will provide assistance to both the RAU and the TUM in preparing and offering the second year's classes. Such an arrangement ensures the sustainability of this block of courses and improves the likelihood that the skills derived from participation in the courses will advance the development of this post-communist region.

It is our belief that these courses will have an important and positive impact in creating an effective educational system that will be geared toward the utilization of technology in dealing with the developmental problems of post-communist society. Having assistant instructors assigned to each course improves the likelihood that each course will become an accepted part of the curriculum of our Romanian and Moldovan counterparts. JMU's support role after the first year will establish the proper relationship in this important educational partnership.

For several years, JMU has undertaken an ambitious program that stresses applied research and the pragmatic application of university instruction. Being able to operate in post-communist East Europe is an important benefit to our university as it works to establish a proven record in the area of applied studies. This experience will play a crucial role in giving JMU personnel the experiences that will allow them to advance the university's broader mission of service to society.

At the end of the two year grant period, the Romanian American University will publish a study of this experience and will make that available throughout the educational communities of both Romania and Moldova as well as the United States. During the administration of the program, the RAU has its own regular newspaper which will publicize program developments and, in Moldova, the weekly Mesagerul, will pay similar attention to our efforts. These strategies insure that other universities will be able to learn from this experience and, where appropriate, replicate the programs created by JMU cooperation with the RAU and the TUM. We believe this program for "training the trainers" will be appreciated by citizens who want the United States to help in the development of the post-communist world but don't want our government to intimately involved in the day to day operation of such a program over a period of many years. Under the arrangement we propose, our Romanian and Moldovan counterparts would assume responsibility for these functions within a period of one year.

Work phases:

First phase, July, 1998- June, 1999: As the first phase of work, JMU, as the coordinating institution, will design the specific courses to be offered. For JMU, the design process will include the creation of syllabi for each course and the preparation of materials to be provided to course participants. During this phase, our partner institutions will identify course participants, locate facilities to utilized for the courses, select assistant instructors, and provide feedback and market researches in the related fields . At the end of this phase, each of the courses will be offered for the first time. Before the courses begin, JMU will be responsible for providing assistant instructors with preliminary materials to be used in preparation for their teaching assignments. The partner institutions will inform JMU of the identities and backgrounds of the students. The meeting times for the courses will begin in May and end by early June. During the course, each student will be excused from other responsibilities and will make a full-time commitment to the course work. The course will be held every day, except Saturdays and Sundays, for a two-week period. The assistant instructors will attend and participate in every class.

During the instructional period of this phase, the JMU instructors will identify local needs that can be met by future courses.

Second phase, July, 1999 - June, 2000: During this phase, the assistant instructors will take responsibility for direction of the courses in which they participated. Prior to offering the courses, the assistant instructors will have coordinated with their JMU counterparts about any problems regarding offering the course. JMU will be responsible for providing materials for these sessions of the courses and will confirm that all course requirements are satisfied. At the end of this phase, JMU will be responsible for writing a report of the progress of this program. The report will be published by the RAU and will be disseminated in both Romania and Moldova.

A. Personnel FY 1998 FY 1999

Stephen Bowers, Principal Investigator 5,103 5,307

(JMU One Summer Month Salary)

Release @ 25% of academic year 5,000 5,000

The principal Investigator will have 1/4 reassigned time to direct development and conduct of courses. He will have overall responsibility for direction of the program, for supervision of both first and second phase instruction, and for preparation of the report on this project.

B. JMU-provided Instructors

David Ley 6,490 0

Mark Usry 6,567 0

Douglas Skelley 6,256 3,253

Joanne Pearson 5,064 0

George Blomstrom 3,000 0

The above individuals will have responsibility for providing in-country instruction. They will prepare all course materials, lesson plans, and instructional aids and will be responsible for evaluating the work of participants. They will be assisted by local instructors who will assume responsibility for the courses when they are taught in the second phase of the program.

C. Fringe Benefits

Fringe Benefits @ 7.65% 2,867 1,037

D. Travel

Airfare 8,400 2,520

Food per Deim 2,100 600

All of the above personnel will travel to Romania and Moldova in the first phase of the program. In the second phase, only two will make this journey. The two will be the Dr. Bowers and Dr. Skelley who will supervise the instructional process and begin work on preparation of the report on this project.

E. Equipment

Overhead projector 800

2 @ $400 each

Instructors will prepare transparencies for use on an overhead projector. The projector will be purchased locally and will remain with the partner institutions.

F. Office Supplies

Paper 500 500

Copying/Printing 600 600

Transparencies 200 200

Telephone/FAX 420 420

G. University Affiliate

Assistant Instructor 4,800 4,800

$600 each

Translators 1,400 400

$200 each

Guides 700 200

$100 each

Food 2,100 2,100

$300 each

Travel 700 200

$100

The assistant instructors will be provided by the Technical University of Moldova and the Romanian American University. They will be paid for both their assistant duties as well as the lead instructor duties during the second phase.

Our partner institutions will also hire translators and guides for the use of the JMU provided personnel. $100 is provided for the use of a locally rented automobile when needed. The partner institutions will also provide meals for the JMU provided instructors.

H. Total Direct Costs 63,067 25,638

1. Indirect Costs

J. Total Requested 70,713 28,404