BOWLING GREEN, OH -- By this time next week, six BGSU faculty members will be in Croatia, helping train U.S. foreign service officers from a number of countries in the region to be better communicators. They will be the first faculty members from a U.S. university to take part in the Academic Collaborative Initiative for Mission Public Information Officers, created by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

The team, led by Catherine Cassara, journalism, will be in Croatia from May 1-15. They were recruited by BGSU alumnus Brock Bierman, who works in the USAID Bureau for Europe and Eurasia, where he is chief of staff to assistant administrator Kent Hill. In return for their participation, the bureau is paying for their travel and living expenses while in Zagreb and Opatija.

"We look at this as very crucial training," Bierman said. "We're both building relationships and teaching people to communicate." Many of the participants are foreign service nationals, who are often those who go on to become leaders in their own countries, he added, and USAID is eager to help them develop their skills.

"Our goal is to provide additional training and technical assistance to our foreign service officers and foreign service nationals in the field, in this case to teach them to be public information officers," Bierman said. "I sincerely believe this is going to be a training unlike any other that has been sponsored by our bureau, or, for that matter, the agency. . . . We are optimistic that through the small-group, actual classroom situation, there will be a significant, measurable improvement in the journalism and speech-writing skills of the participants."

The six faculty have developed and will pilot the ambitious program, which was conceived by Bierman in response to requests for assistance from foreign service officers themselves. Teaching the approximately 25 participants will be Cassara, Nancy Brendlinger and Dennis Hale, all from journalism; Charles Hoy, telecommunications, and John Warren and Laura Lengel, both interpersonal communication.

The BGSU team has been working since February to design the two-week, intensive training program, based on a survey of the group's needs.

The curriculum will be taught in small-group settings. Participants will spend the mornings and afternoons in hands-on sessions with their BGSU faculty leaders, including trips to USAID projects in the region. At night, participants will complete homework assignments.

The workshop topics will include basic journalistic writing skills, fundamentals of public relations, writing effective speeches, and event planning. Technology training will feature basic video, instruction in the rudiments of desktop publishing, an introduction to photojournalism and digital photography processing, developing effective Web pages, and computer-mediated communication across national boundaries.

Because the training is so intensive, BGSU and USAID are discussing the possibility of the participants' receiving transferable graduate credit for the workshop.

BGSU's faculty are an especially good fit for the role because several of them already have expertise in the geographic region, Bierman pointed out. For example, Brendlinger has taught journalism skills in Slovakia as a Fulbright Scholar. Cassara's bachelor's degree is in Russian studies, and she has researched and written about such topics as how the media can examine the ways in which political and governmental systems change, and the media in post-Soviet states. And Lengel has published a book on communication technology in post-Soviet nations and developed a course for the Fulbright International Summer Institute in Bulgaria.

When they return, all six will receive Presidential Service Awards, to be presented by Bierman.

(Posted April 27, 2004)