Return to Table of ContentsThe School of Engineering and Technology at IUPUI has signed a $4.25 million, two-year contract to continue providing undergraduate engineering degree programs and technical assistance for Tenaga Nasional Berhard, Malaysia's national power company. H. Oner Yurtseven, recently appointed dean of the engineering and technology school at IUPUI, was chief of party and chief academic officer through the first two years of the program, which works in cooperation with Tenaga Nasional's training institute.
"What many don't know, and what has made us the envy of other colleges and universities in the United States, is that IUPUI has aggressively established a presence in the educational marketplace of Southeast Asia," Yurtseven said.
The contract extension calls for IUPUI to provide qualified faculty to teach in Malaysia. Students then will finish their degrees at IUPUI, Purdue's West Lafayette campus, or other universities, including the University of Malaya. Some 20 students who completed the first two years of study in Malaysia are now in Indianapolis and eight more are studying in West Lafayette.
The contract follows an announcement last May that the Information Technology Laboratory at IUPUI will design and develop a $1 million, digital interactive multi-media distribution system (DIMDS) for the Tenaga Nasional Institute of Engineering Technology, which will become an independent university in 2001.
In a similar program administered by IU's Office of International Programs, credits through IUPUI and IU Bloomington were offered to Malaysians from 1986-1995 in cooperation with Malaysia's MARA Institute of Technology.
The House of Representatives voted to support the NEA at $99.5 million and the NEH at $104.5. Senate appropriators want to give both agencies $99.5 million. The NEA received $99.5 million in fiscal 1996 and the NEH received $110 million.