By Jessica Kirk
and Dan
Rahn
University of Georgia
The devastation of the Dec. 26 Indian Ocean tsunami was still
being revealed when Ed Kanemasu and his University of Georgia
colleagues returned from their winter holiday. Their concerns
focused on Thailand.
Mainly, they thought of people in three Thai universities: Chiang
Mai, Khon Kaen and Kasetsart.
“The UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences has
been cooperating with these universities for 15 to 20 years on
student and faculty exchange programs,” said Kanemasu, CAES
assistant dean and director of global programs.
UGA and the Thai universities have each funded one- to four-month
faculty stays in Thailand or Athens, Kanemasu said. The
scientists worked on research mainly on peanuts, natural resource
management, food science and crop modeling.
Scholarships
The Thai government gives scholarships to outstanding students
studying abroad in graduate degree programs, too, he said. UGA
has hosted about 20 of these students, mainly in food science,
over the past 10 years.
So when the CAES administrative council met in January, the group
agreed they needed to provide scholarships for victims affected
by the tsunami.
They decided to invite each department and unit to donate $500
from their scholarship funds. “We felt the needs were so
immediate that we wanted to act quickly,” Kanemasu said.
CAES Interim Dean and Director Josef Broder said the goal was to
provide a $1,500 scholarship for each of the three universities.
The group quickly raised $6,350.
Most units gave $500. Others came up with more. The plant
pathology department, because of its long-term relationship with
Khon Kaen, donated $1,500.
“We are deeply grateful to the Georgia 4-H Foundation,” Broder
said, “for their assistance in making these scholarship funds
available to the recipients.”
Response
“That was just a wonderful response,” Kanemasu said. “I was
amazed at how much was raised, considering how tight our budgets
are now.”
David Knauft, former CAES associate dean for academic affairs,
was scheduled to visit Chiang Mai and Kasetsart in April. He used
the opportunity to present checks to each.
Chiang Mai President Pongsak Angkasith is scheduling a trip to
the UGA Athens campus, where he hopes to renew a memorandum of
agreement with UGA.
The CAES group’s goal was to provide a scholarship for one
student for each university. Information officers in the Royal
Thai Embassy in Washington, D.C., say students need about $2,400
per year for room and board. The King of Thailand pays for
tuition for any Thai who passes the college entrance exam.
Results
Each university, however, was allowed to put the money to its
best use. And each is using the gift, Kanemasu said, in different
plans for tsunami relief.
At Kasetsart, he said, the funds are being used to help the
families of three researchers and one graduate student who died
in the tsunami at the Ranong Coastal Resources Research Station.
Khon Kaen took a group of students to help rebuild tsunami-torn
areas. They used the funds to provide transportation and supplies
for that effort.
Chiang Mai is creating a larger fund for students affected by the
tsunami. As part of that fund, the CAES scholarship will go to
four students who lost one or both parents in the tsunami.
Kanemasu and Broder say they hope to take the scholarships a step
further and help provide graduate study at UGA for students
identified in this year’s efforts.
“We’d like to be able to keep track of the student recipients and
possibly help them financially in the future,” Kanemasu said.
(Jessica Kirk is an information specialist and Dan Rahn a news
editor with the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and
Environmental Sciences.)
