A new overseas partnership will include all levels of study in pharmacy, dentistry and engineering.
Soon, students will have the opportunity to travel farther through the university’s newest study-abroad program.
Temple signed an agreement for an exchange of students and faculty with Future University in Egypt. Provost Lisa Staiano-Coico and Dr. Ebada Sarhan, president of FUE, signed the agreement at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo.
“We will engage in training FUE students in several areas in each college,” Temple professor of medicinal chemistry Magid Abou-Gharbia said, “like in the pharmacy collaboration, we will train students in our Drug Manufacturing GMP facility and in clinical pharmacy.”
The agreement includes contact persons for each university.
“The deans of the involved Temple colleges [will be] working with their FUE counterparts,” Abou-Gharbia said.
Abou-Gharbia is the associate dean for research and director of the Moulder Center for Drug Discovery Research at Temple’s School of Pharmacy. He was named Temple’s contact person.
FUE named its General Secretary Taha Shaban its contact person.
FUE administrators first approached Abou-Gharbia to talk about the idea of an agreement between Temple and FUE while he was giving a lecture on drug discovery there. The chairman of the board of trustees, Khaled Azazy, wanted to pursue the idea of collaboration between the two universities.
The collaboration will include an exchange of undergraduate, graduate and professional students and faculty from Temple’s School of Pharmacy, Engineering and Dentistry.
But pharmacy, engineering and dentistry students eager to explore Egypt won’t have too long to wait. Abou-Gharbia said he expects to see the exchange begin as early as this December.
“We will expect [to see the exchange of students and faculty] in December and in the summer,” he said, “when Temple faculty will be [engaged] in giving condensed lectures at FUE.”
FUE is located in New Cairo, a suburb lying about 20 miles outside Cairo.
New Cairo is home to other universities like the American University in Cairo and German University in Cairo.
U.S. Ambassador to Egypt Margaret Scobey hosted the signing ceremony at the Embassy in Cairo. The ambassador praised Temple’s decision to recognize the opportunity for its students.
“There is no other country in the Muslim world and Arab world with an older tradition of learning and respect for education than Egypt,” she said.
“This first phase of the agreement is with three colleges and is regarded just as a start,” Abou-Gharbia said, “and it will be expanded to [students from the] College of Liberal Arts’ Middle Eastern studies, business and computer and information technology.”
Valerie Rubinsky can be reached at valerie.rubinsky@temple.edu.
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