SUNY Potsdam

SUNY Potsdam has more than a decade of connections and collaborations with Tunisia.

• 2008-2009
  SUNY Potsdam hosts visiting Tunisian Fulbright researcher, Jihene Rbiai from the Faculty of Letters, Manouba.
• January 2007
  first Tunisia Winterim travel course, led by Lora Lunt and Florence Shu.
• Fall 2007
  Visiting ISG professor, Maha Achour teaches in SUNY Potsdam’s Leadership and Technology program.
• November 2006
  Partnership visit to ISG by Lora Lunt (International Education and Modern Languages), Edwin Portugal (Business Management) and Florence Shu (Economics) to plan future collaboration.
• May 2006
  Partnership Symposium, Tunis.
• May 2004
  Signing of University Partnership Agreement with the Institut Supérieur de Gestion, Tunis.
• October 2004
  Visiting Tunisian scholar, Jouda Jawahdou from the ISLT, funded by the U.S. Embassy, Tunis, spent a month at SUNY Potsdam doing library research and helping the ISG team with adjustment to life at a U.S. university.
• August 2003 - May 2004
  Team of eight visiting faculty from the Institut Supérieur de Gestion, Tunis received on SUNY Potsdam campus.
• July 2001
  Dr. Nejet Mchala from the ISLT taught a summer school course at SUNY Potsdam, LITT 395/ANTC 395 "Maghrebian Literature and Culture," and ran a three-day film series on Tunisian film, open to the community.
• Spring semester 2001
  Potsdam sent a French major to study at the ISLT, with housing provided with a host family through AFS Tunisia.
• May - June 2000 
  Richard Lunt and Lora Lunt met with personnel at three universities in Tunisia:  ISLT and Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences -Manouba in Tunis, Faculty of Letters and Music at the Université du Centre, Sousse. 
  
• Spring 2000
  Lora Lunt developed a new course for Modern Languages and Africana and Women's studies: "Voices of North African Women," using novels in translation from Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. The course was offered in English, with an extra discussion section in French, as part of a learning community (in conjunction with a course in Middle Eastern anthropology).
• May 1998 
  Richard and Lora Lunt met with personnel of the Tunisian Embassy in Washington, D.C. and wrote letters to the Ministry of Education in Tunis.
• July 1996 
  A Potsdam anthropology major studied Tunisian Arabic at the Bourguiba Institute.
• June 1996 
  Richard and Lora Lunt met with personnel at the then Institut Bourguiba (now Institut Supérieur des Langues, Université de Carthage, Tunis) and the Faculty of Letters-Manouba in Tunis to discuss mutual needs and exchange possibilities.
• 1995-1996
  SUNY Potsdam departments of Anthropology and Modern Languages and the School of Education jointly sponsored Dr. Kacem Ben Hamza, former director of the Institut Bourguiba (now ISLT) as a Fulbright scholar at SUNY Potsdam.  Dr. Ben Hamza taught courses on Middle Eastern Culture, English as a Second Language, and Methods of Teaching ESL, and he worked on a task force designing an ESL-Bilingual Education certification program.  He received visiting Winterim students in his home in 2007 and 2008 and housed the entire group for a week in 2009 while offering a week of lectures on Tunisian history, culture, and language.
• Spring 1989
  Two SUNY Potsdam students studied Modern Standard Arabic and Tunisian Arabic in Tunis at the Institut Bourguiba, building on a year of Modern Standard Arabic at SUNY Potsdam with Lora Lunt 1987-1988. 

• 1988-1999
  Richard Lunt, dually appointed in English and Anthropology departments at SUNY Potsdam, taught English and American Studies as a Fulbright Scholar at the Faculty of Letters in Tunis (now part of the University of Manouba).