March 25, 2009
Media contact: Anne Russell
Cell: 604-798-3709
Office: 604-795-2826
anne.russell@ufv.ca
UFV collaborates with Vietnamese universities
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| MOU at Vietnam National University (Law School). UFV president Skip Bassford, associate VP Yvon Dandurand with Prof. Pham Hong Thai, Rector of the School of Law, Dr. Le Van Cam, Criminal Law department head Vietnam National University. |
The University of the Fraser Valley wants to work more closely with Vietnamese universities, and has entered into partnership agreements with two of them.
UFV president Skip Bassford has just returned from a trip to China and Vietnam to further several academic collaboration projects. From March 19 to 25, he visited Vietnam, accompanied by Yvon Dandurand, UFV’s associate VP of Research and Graduate Studies. While there, the UFV representatives formalized research and academic collaboration agreements with the law school of the Vietnam National University (VNU) (www.vnu.edu.vn/en/ ) and with the Hanoi University of Business and Technology (HUBT) (www.hubt.edu.vn/vi/ ). The VNU is one of the leading public universities in Vietnam and its law school is the leading law school of the country. HUBT is a relatively new private university with a skills-based approach to teaching and learning, and approximately 15,000 students. It has programs in various areas, including law, economics, business, English, computer science.
“These agreements focus primarily on research cooperation between the institutions, but they are meant to open the door to broader collaboration, faculty exchanges, student exchanges and possibly joint programs,” noted Bassford. “These academic relationships, which are now being formalized, were formed over the years as a result of our faculty members’ involvement in various rule-of-law and children’s rights projects in Vietnam, in particular the work of members of UFV’s Global Development Institute.”
A number of potential new areas of research collaboration were identified during the meetings in Hanoi and funding agencies are being approached to support these activities.
UFV criminologist Dr. Terry Waterhouse is currently in Vietnam with one of his students, Luke Bell, to conduct a juvenile justice project evaluation on behalf of UNICEF.
UFV AVP of Research and Graduate Studies Yvon Dandurand stayed in Vietnam to continue to work with the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC) and help organize various consultations on the future of legal education in Vietnam.
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