The University of New Mexico, through a grant from the Eurasia Foundation (EF), is helping faculty at Kazakhstan’s Eurasian National University (ENU) establish a two-year Master of Science degree in Environmental Management and Engineering (MSEME). The grant is funded primarily by a five-year commitment from the U.S. energy company AES with contributions from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
Four UNM faculty, including Bruce Thomson and Tim J. Ward of Civil Engineering; Gregory Gleason of Political Science; and Michael E. Campana of the Water Resources Program and the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, are spearheading the effort to establish the program.
ENU, located in the capital Astana, will enroll its first candidates in September 2005 and expects to graduate its first cohort in 2007. ENU hopes to graduate 20 students per year once the program is established.
“We were very impressed with the dedication and knowledge of the ENU faculty,” said Campana, project director. “Both AES and EF are committed to the MSEME’s success and we are enthused to be part of this program.”
AES sought to establish this program in part to support its operations in Kazakhstan, where it owns and operates power generation and distribution facilities. Dale Perry, AES General Manager in Kazakhstan, said that AES wants to help Kazakhstan produce “specialists who have a solid grasp of both the science and local operating conditions.”
Thomson, Gleason, and Campana recently returned from two weeks in Astana where they taught ENU faculty some of the subjects they will need to teach their students – environmental science and engineering, hydrology, and environmental management – and helped with curriculum development.
Seven ENU faculty will travel to UNM for two weeks in August to receive more training from Thomson, Economics Professor Janie Chermak, Civil Engineering Professor Julie Coonrod and Mark Cal of New Mexico Tech, all of whom will instruct in air quality and pollution.
UNM faculty will also help ENU faculty develop funded research projects to provide support for students and faculty alike and ensure the sustainability of the MSEME degree program.
Kazakhstan, one of the former Soviet republics, became independent in 1991. It is a vast (more than 1,000,000 square miles, about four times the size of Texas), sparsely populated (15,000,000 people) country with substantial energy (oil, gas and coal) and mineral resources.
The potential for environmental degradation from these operations as well as agricultural, waste-disposal and other land uses is significant. With UNM’s assistance, ENU’s MSEME graduates will help ensure that degradation is minimized and that Kazakhstan develops its resources wisely.
Contact: Steve Carr, (505) 277-1821
Posted by scarr at July 25, 2005 05:30 PM