EAF Executive Committee Meeting Minutes November 2008

Minutes of the Executive Committee (EC) of EAF held on November 8, 2008 at 1:00 PM at the home of Doree and Assefa Mehretu, Okemos Michigan .

Present: Executive Committee: Teshome Wagaw (Chair), Sisay Asefa, Asrat Tessema, Wongelawit Teferra, Tezera Haile, Mulumebet Hussein, Doree and Assefa Mehretu.

Guests : David Wiley, Director of the African Studies Center , MSU, and Chris Root, Department of History, MSU.

1. Minutes of the meeting of the EC held on September 13, 2008 at 11:00 AM at the home of Wogayehu and Sisay Asefa in Kalamazoo were presented. Moved by Wongel, seconded by Teshome, the minutes were approved as presented.

2. Agenda : The agenda for the meeting was moved by Sisay, seconded by Asrat and endorsed without a vote.

3. Reports:

Chairperson Wagaw welcomed raised the issue of the Board of Trustees and the fact that election to reconstitute the Board has been delayed. The EC discussed it and indicated that it needs to be deal with at our next meeting. Teshome congratulated Sisay Asefa for receiving the prestigious “Distinguished Service Award” from Western Michigan University . Sisay reported that he was in Sweden to attend a conference and then he proceeded to go to Addis where he was invited to help AAU with a program for food security. Asrat reported on the loss of value of EAF investment because of the downturn of the economy nationally.

•  Items from #3 for Decision

None.

5. EAF Issues

a. Regular EAF Business: EAF finances, and memberships were briefly discussed without decisions.

b. Board of Trustees Meeting: It was suggested that a meeting of all current Board members be help in summer of 2009. A definite date was not fixed.

c. EAF Board Election: This was tabled.

d. EAF Fellowship: Assefa suggested that EAF try an alternative way of offering the EAF research support grant. Basically, the suggestion was to work with the AAU Vice President for Research and Graduate Programs and make an annual financial allocation to the Office of the Research and Graduate Studies at AAU so that EAF fund can be awarded to the best graduate student in any college. The suggestion was endorsed and members instructed Assefa to initiate correspondence with AAU Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies to see how this can be implemented.

e. General: The plan is to train 5000 PhD graduates in 10 years. There is also mention that 70 percent of students should be in science and 30 percent in social science. David also mentioned interest by a sociology professor (Hirut) who interested in gender issues and wanted to come to a U.S. university. David said that he is exploring with MSU units.

6. Discussion on Ethiopian Higher Education

a. Teshome W. reported on his correspondence with the Dean of the College of Education at AAU and shared the “call for papers” for the forthcoming conference entitled “First International Conference of Educational Research for Development” organized by the College of Education, AAU. The conference is scheduled for May 13 to 15, 2009. Teshome indicated that the organizers would like EAF participation in the conference. Participation on the conference by EAF was endorsed. It was also suggested that we use the thematic outline that was prepared in earlier meetings by the EAF Executive Committee be use to assign papers that will be presented at the conference. The following assignments were given by the EC:

(1) Teshome Wagaw: History and philosophy of higher education (I and II of the outline)

(2) Asrat Tessema: Financing of higher education (IX of the outline)

(3) Sisay Asefa: The role of the Ethiopian Diaspora in higher education (X of the outline)

(4) Assefa Mehretu: The professoriate and curricular issues in Ethiopia 's higher education (IV and V of the outline)

(5) (David Wiley is composing a protocol for a consortium of Michigan universities to work together to help with the AAU initiatives to expand graduate education) (This was discussed in an earlier meeting of EAF EC in Kalamazoo ).

b. Sisay gave a briefing on the developments of the forthcoming conference in Addis Ababa on The International Conference on Ethiopian Development Studies. He indicated that he had discussions with the heads of the New Generation University , and the College of Development Studies at AAU and that they will the local co-sponsors of the conference. Sisay also indicated that he spoke with the Acting Director of IES of AAU.

7. Projects on Ethiopian Higher Education

Tabled.

8. Next Meeting of the EC

It was suggested that the next meeting to be on January 10, 2009. .

9. Adjournment

Meeting was adjourned at 5:00 PM. Chairperson Teshome thanked the hosts Doree and Assefa.