International Development

NOTE: These pages are quite dated, and will be revised by Spring 2007

Southern Illinois University at Carbondale has earned a worldwide reputation for its international activities. Contributing to this reputation are the increasing number and quality of externally funded projects, programs and related activities.

The University's first major international development activity was a $2,106,766 contract from USAID in May, 1961. This project provided pre-service and in-service training for elementary teachers throughout South Vietnam. During the next five years (1962-66), other major projects were conducted in Afghanistan, Mali, Nepal, and Nigeria. After 1966, activities began to level off with large-scale projects occurring only sporadically in 1969 (Vietnam), 1970 (Brazil), 1978 (Nepal) and 1981 (Malaysia).

Significant changes in the direction of development activities took place in the 1980's with the creation of the Office of International Development (1986). This office worked to promote and to advance new policies to support development activities and international linkages; maintained liaison with Washington agencies, private organizations, and international groups to keep informed on funding opportunities; organized specialized support services to assist faculty; created computer programs and a resource reference collection to aid proposal development; and focused professional expertise on the packaging of proposals to meet the demands of increasing competition for external funds at the national and international levels.

The results of these changes are reflected in the graphic, "External Funding, International Activities '86-'96." Efforts that started in 1985-86 began immediately to translate into increased external funding for international activities. The year 1989 was an exception to the general upward trend due to a large deposit of start-up funds for the Nakajo Campus in Japan and a large grant from the USAID agricultural project in Peshawar, Pakistan.

By way of further comparison, the University received external funding of $31,631,488 for 154 activities during the first twenty-five year period of 1961-1985. This compares with external funding of $52,916,968 for 407 activities during the last eleven-year period (1986-1996).

According to a senior program officer at the United States Information Agency, "SIUC has established a reputation for producing highly competitive proposals and quality programs."



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