University of Puerto Rico - SIS Partnership

SIS Creates Memorandum of Understanding with University of Puerto Rico Program

L to R: Dr. Ed Cortez, Director of SIS, Dr. Gladys Escalona de Motta,
Chancellor of UPR, Rio Piedras campus, and Dra. Nitza M. Hernández,
Director of GSIST

The School of Information Sciences inaugurated a partnership for
collaborative cross-cultural leadership with the University of Puerto Rico’s
Graduate School of Information Sciences and Technologies on August 28, 2006.
The Chancellor of the Rio Piedras campus, Dr. Gladys Escalona de Motta, and
Dr. Edwin Cortez, Director of SIS, signed a Memorandum of Understanding at a
ceremony attended by the president of UPR Antonio García Padilla and Dr.
George Hoemann, Assistant Dean of Distance Education and Independent Study
at UT and a SIS alumnus.

In commending the new partnership, Chancellor Escalona de Motta noted
that the UPR system had just begun a ten-year strategic plan aimed at
developing international and intercultural initiatives. At the University of
Tennessee, the partnership fulfills the Ready for the World initiative,
which seeks to engage UT students and faculty with an international forum.
Thus, the collaboration between SIS and GSIST is not only particularly
timely but also strategically important for both UPR and UT.

At the ceremony, Dr. Cortez and Dr. Nitza M. Hernandez Lopez, Director of
GSIST, described the first joint project under the terms of the partnership,
a Ready for the World-sponsored symposium, which will be held at UT on
October 30 and 31. Participants will be hand selected undergraduate students
who, though a series of processes and conversations, will develop an “Intercultural Toolkit for Leadership in the Information Age.”

Three GSIST faculty and three students will travel to Knoxville to
co-facilitate the symposium. Other potential collaborative efforts include a
joint grant application to the Institute of Museum and Library Services,
instructional and course sharing, as well as joint research projects between
the two faculties.

L to R: Srta. Yasmine Torres, student of the GSIST, UPR- Rio Piedras
campus, Dr. Mariano Maura, Associate Dean of Graduate Studies and
Research, University of Puerto Rico, Dr. Ed Cortez, Director of SIS,
Prof. Sara Irizarry, Coordinator for International Partnerships, Office
of the UPR President, Dr. George Hoemann, Assistant Dean of Distance
Education and Independent Study at UT, Dra. Gladys Escalona de Motta,
Chancellor of the UPR-Rio Piedras campus, Dra. Nitza M. Hernández,
Director of GSIST, UPR- Rio Piedras campus, Sr. Orlando Rosado, student
of the GSIST, UPR- Rio Piedras campus.