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University to Form Alliance in Afghanistan
University of Hartford
Posted: March 6, 2007

Associate Professor Saleh Keshawarz during a recent trip to AfghanistanM. Saleh Keshawarz, a native of Afghanistan and associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University, has led an effort to secure a United States Agency for International Development (USAID) grant of more than $215,000 over three years to develop an engineering alliance with Herat University in his native land.

The grant will enable Keshawarz and colleagues in the University of Hartford's College of Engineering, Technology, and Architecture (CETA) to help in revising and rejuvenating the undergraduate civil engineering curriculum at Herat. In addition, two Afghan engineering professors from Herat will come to Hartford to pursue their master’s degrees. The degree work and the experience of an American engineering curriculum will help develop their skills for teaching engineering when they return to Herat.

Keshawarz says he is “excited about the opportunity to partner with Herat University” and to help improve its engineering program, “which is vital to the rebuilding effort in Afghanistan. In the process, we are building bridges of understanding between the people of Afghanistan and the U.S.,” he says. “Working on an international effort and hosting Afghan faculty will provide valuable experiences for our students and faculty.”

Grant funds will also be used to purchase new engineering textbooks for students at Herat University. In addition, money from the grant will be used to buy computers for the full-time faculty at Herat so that they can improve the quality of their teaching and their research work.

Keshawarz and two of his colleagues—Hisham Alnajjar, chair of the electrical and computer engineering department and an assistant dean of CETA, and Ivana Milanovic, associate professor and chair of the mechanical engineering department— are working on a proposal to the World Bank to expand this alliance with Herat University. The proposal would involve CETA faculty who would go to Afghanistan to teach at Herat University while Herat faculty would come to Hartford for graduate studies. Additional collaborations and exchanges on research and student projects would also be encouraged under this expanded alliance.

Keshawarz has made many trips to Afghanistan over the years, both to provide his own engineering expertise and to revitalize engineering education in the war-torn nation, so that engineers can be trained to rebuild the country’s infrastructure.