By DERRICK GALINDO
Senior Reporter
NWOSU initiated a partnership with a university in Nigeria, which allows Nigerian students to pursue their courses remotely.
Dr. Shawn Holliday, NWOSU’s Associate Dean of Graduate Studies, initiated a Memorandum of Understanding with Nile University of Nigeria, located in the capitol, Abuja. By 2025, students from Nigeria will be able to obtain their education from NWOSU through interactive television, online and hybrid formats. NWOSU’s office of graduate studies chose Nile University of Nigeria due to almost 100 applications they received from Africa, Holliday said.
“Most of those applications came from Nigeria and Ghana,” Holliday said. “I had contacted a university in Ghana that never got back to me. Then we had a professor here at Northwestern, formerly.
“His name is Dr. Nnanna, he is Nigerian, so I reached out to him to see if he had any contacts at any universities in Nigeria. The first name I contacted was up for it, and so he put me in contact with the vice chancellor. It took us about a year, but we signed our Memorandum of Understanding this summer.”
These students have opportunities to enroll in the Master of Arts in Heritage Tourism and Conservation program, the Master of Education in Adult Education Management and Administration program, the Master of Science in General Psychology program or in graduate-level English or literature courses.
“Formerly, if a Nigerian student wanted an American degree, they’d have to actually come here and be considered an international student,” he said “And have all these additional steps. This way, they can stay in their home country and receive our education.
“It will be much more cost effective for them than actually having to travel to the United States and live here. I just hope … professors would be open to having international students in their class, and would try to use that, having them there, to talk about cultural differences or different ideas about the topics being discussed in class. I think it would actually benefit [them].”
