Troy University News

April 21, 2003

Contact:
Tom Davis
Troy Office of University Relations
334/670-3196
tomdavis@troy.edu

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   TSU faculty member returns from teaching in Afghanistan
   A professor at Troy State University was invited to Afghanistan recently in an effort to improve the quality of education in that war-torn nation.
   Dr. Terry Mitchell, Assistant Professor of English at TSU, was a grant recipient and teaching fellow with the International Institute for Cooperative Studies. He and two other professors from American universities were hired by the Afghani Ministry of Higher Education to teach seminars to about 120 members of the combined faculties of the University of Education and Kabul University. The team taught in a three-day cycle to where each of them taught his seminars three times to groups of about 35-40 university faculty.
   The seminars, lasting nine days, included topics such as Educational Philosophy, Curriculum Development, Learning Styles, The Student-Centered Classroom and the University System of Academic Credit.
   The University of Education had the distinction of being built by the Russians as a communist think tank, Dr. Mitchell said. After the communists were removed from power and during the Mujhahadim civil war, the building became a school for Islamic fundamentalism. When the Taliban took over, the campus became a school of radical Islam. There were documents indicating that Osama Bin Laden had spent some time teaching at the school.
   “Funny how three Americans could end up in the odd academic life of this University,” Mitchell said.
   Mitchell previously taught in China in 1986 as it was opening its doors to Westerners, in Poland in 1993-94 just as it was moving out from communism and then in Bosnia shortly after the end of its civil war.
   “None of those trips prepared me for the full extent of the destruction, poverty and need that exists now in Afghanistan, especially in higher education,” Dr. Mitchell said. Faculty and students lack basic supplies such as books, paper and black/whiteboards with chalk or markers. None of the labs such as chemistry, biology, physics or language arts have materials for students to conduct hands-on practice. Many Afghan faculty had not had continuing education opportunities for more than 23 years.
   “The need truly is great, but the opportunities for us here in the United States and at TSU to make a positive difference in the University of Education in Kabul is equally as great,” Dr. Mitchell said.