Fairleigh Dickinson and the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations’ specialized agency for health, have agreed to collaborate to provide videoconferences and student/faculty seminars. Members of WHO also will be recruited to join FDU as Global Virtual Faculty (GVF).

“Entering into a substantive relationship with the World Health Organization is another important step toward fulfilling our mission of global education,” said President J. Michael Adams. “We also believe that we will be able to provide a significant service to WHO in fulfilling its interests in reaching out to the public health, higher education and medical communities in the United States.”

The program begins this fall under the auspices of FDU’s Office of Interdisciplinary, Distributed and Global Learning and the Institute of Pharmaceutical and Health-care Studies. The University will organize two videoconferences each semester with WHO offices in Geneva, Switzerland, and New York. The format of these conferences will be a 45- to 60-minute lecture by a WHO expert on mutually agreed upon topics/themes, followed by 30 minutes of questions and answers. The University also will invite other audiences (such as local hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, public health offices, etc.) to participate in each conference and broadcast these events to up to five sites.

As part of its programs with the United Nations, the University has regularly hosted videoconferences broadcast from the United Nations Headquarters to the FDU campuses and then distributed these programs to other universities. The University also successfully hosted a pilot videoconference with WHO offices in New York City and Geneva.

This semester’s videoconferences will be held Wednesday, October 27, and Thursday, December 2. The potential topics include an overview of global health status and the role of the World Health Organization; environmental health; infectious disease; poverty and the health of the poor; health-care systems in developing countries; challenges of global public health; obesity; mental health; and bioterrorism.

The student/faculty seminars will be part of FDU’s MBA programs in health systems management for executives and pharmaceutical management studies. An important part of these programs will be a seminar on global health issues, part of which will involve visits to WHO offices in New York City and Geneva. As a centerpiece to the visit to Geneva, WHO will program seminars and discussions. The target date for the first seminar in Geneva is the spring or summer 2005.

The University also is seeking four to five WHO officials (and more long term) to became members of the GVF and offer perspectives on global health issues as part of FDU’s online initiative. The first course to utilize WHO professionals as GVF will be The Global Challenge.

Other possibilities for the future include internships at WHO and voluntary placements in WHO field offices that would focus on HIV/AIDS prevention and education.

September 2004

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Flor =
College at Florham, Madison, N.J.

Metro =
Metropolitan Campus, Teaneck, N.J.

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