CMU and Alcorn State will join forces to give students experience

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Central Michigan and Alcorn State will not just meet on the football field Sept. 19.

Representatives from the two universities will meet on campus that day to sign the Partnership in Education Agreement as well. The goal is to give undergraduate students more opportunities of experience in their chosen career path.

The agreement is basically a Memorandum of Understanding, which gives the schools the chance to use each other’s resources. The undergraduate programs that will link these two schools include Broadcast of Cinematic Arts, English, Physical Education and Sport and other athletic programs.

Robert Hassen, CMU’s coordinator of graduate recruiting, joined several in visiting ASU’s campus in Mississippi to promote graduate programs.

Accompanied by Tyrone Jordan, executive assistant to the president, they met with ASU President George Ross, CMU’s former vice president of finance and adminstrative services.

“We were really impressed by the faculty and students,” Hassen said. “There were even 45 students that were interested in our programs which was twice as much as what we usually get.”

The exchange

CMU will acquire a great deal of students from ASU’s undergraduate programs. In turn, ASU gets interns in physical education and athletics. The internships were the leading idea behind the PEA.

The students from ASU going into broadcasting look for a midwestern school to get rid of their southern accent because most television broadcast stations speak with midwestern accents, Hassen said.

“What’s particularly exciting is the additional opportunity for departments within the two schools to work together,” said Peter Malik, associate professor of English at Alcorn. “For example, my department chairperson Dr. Cynthia Scurria and I have already been talking with Dr. Marcia Taylor, chairperson of CMU’s English Department, about a collaborative arrangement that will allow our top English majors to enter one of the outstanding master’s degree programs offered by the English Department at CMU, particularly in the fields of language and literature, as well as composition and communication.”

Four undergraduates from ASU are scheduled to visit CMU the day before the game. The signing of the agreement, however, will take place the following morning.

The two teams play in football at 3:30 p.m. at Kelly/Shorts Stadium.