American Beavers in Tunisia
September 30, 2008 – U.S. Ambassador Robert F. Godec yesterday welcomed to Tunisia thirteen Oregon State University (OSU) students and their professors, the husband and wife team of Tunisian Karim Hamdy and American Laura Rice.
OSU Study Abroad has operated in Tunisia since 2004 with a program combining twelve hours per week of linguistic immersion and three elective course taught in English on Literature/Women’s Voices, Cultures of Tunisia and Environmental Case Studies. The OSU students will be studying at Institut Supérieur des Langues à Tunis and will visit Sfax and Djerba later this month.
OSU is one of the few American universities with formal cooperative agreements with multiple Tunisian universities. This year, Professor Hamdy was instrumental in obtaining scholarship funding for the very first Tunisian student to attend college at OSU this fall, Seif Bokri, an alumnus of the Youth Exchange and Study (YES) program funded by U.S. Department of State.