KINGSTON, RI — March 20, 2001 — The University of Rhode Island has recently signed a faculty exchange agreement with the University of Skövde, Sweden, that aims to chart new strategies for international collaboration in graduate education. After viewing URI’s well-established master’s program in nursing, the University of Skövde strongly endorsed a formal agreement for collaboration between the two universities. “They were looking to us for leadership in their master’s program,” said Dayle Joseph, URI dean of nursing. The agreement would involve core graduate courses that URI’s faculty will be teaching in Sweden. The graduate courses are nursing theory, nursing research methods, theories of practice, and advanced leadership issues in nursing. All teaching will be coordinated by Donna Schwartz-Barcott, director of the URI graduate program in nursing. The exchange would be of mutual benefit for both universities. It would not only provide the University of Skövde with a launching pad for the development of its graduate program in nursing, but it would also allow URI to experiment with internet-based teaching and a chance to collaborate with Skövde’s faculty in research and other projects. Dr. Björn Sjöström, a professor at the Department of Nursing, University of Skövde, and URI Professor of Nursing Hesook S. Kim, developed the concept of an exchange. After having collaborated on several research projects involving cross-cultural comparisons in nursing practices over the past 10 years, Sjöström and Kim began discussing the possibility of an educational collaboration last year. Upon hearing the idea, the president of the University of Skövde endorsed it immediately. The arrangement was officially announced in a recent ceremony involving URI President Robert L. Carothers. “In establishing an international joint master of science program in nursing, which I think may be the first of its kind, we are hoping to chart new ways to collaborate in graduate education for nursing,” said Kim. “While we have collaborated with many universities in foreign countries in research in the past and on an ongoing basis, this is the first time we are in a formal agreement for a joint educational program.” For Information: Dave Lavallee 401-874-5862, Keith Marshall 401-874-2116