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West Chester U. chief leads educators' trip to Cuba

The president of West Chester University will lead a national contingent of state university presidents on a one-week trip to Cuba to foster student and faculty exchange programs, research collaboration, and other partnerships.

The president of West Chester University will lead a national contingent of state university presidents on a one-week trip to Cuba to foster student and faculty exchange programs, research collaboration, and other partnerships.

"This is a really unique opportunity to open those doors, with the opening of diplomatic relations between our countries," said Greg R. Weisenstein, who will fly to Miami on Saturday and Havana on Sunday.

Weisenstein is one of 18 presidents and chancellors from New Jersey, Oklahoma, Georgia, Texas, New York, Mississippi, Colorado, and California making the trip. Others include Frank G. Pogue, interim president of Cheyney University, which, like West Chester, is part of the state's higher education system, and Sue Henderson, president of New Jersey City University.

The trip has been put together by the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, which also is sending staff.

As chair of that association's international committee, Weisenstein was asked to play a leadership role. Weisenstein, who has his bachelor's degree in U.S. history and geology and his advanced degrees in educational fields, has had experience on an international front, though he started as a high school teacher in Washington in 1969.

In the early 1990s, as associate dean of research at Clemson University, he led a scientific delegation to the Soviet Union and ended up negotiating directly with Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the country's president, on an agreement to tie together the Soviet, European, and U.S. satellite systems for better communication in the academic and business communities.

In 2003, when he was a dean at Montana State University, the State Department chose him to help Moldova restructure its higher education system.

In Cuba, the presidents' group will meet with the ministers of health and education, and tour universities and talk to their leaders.

"We want to hear what happens at Cuban universities," said Weisenstein, who has led West Chester since 2009.

Weisenstein said the presidents hope to answer such questions as: Does their higher education system mesh with ours? Do they use traditional credit hours? What topics do their faculty research? Are conditions suitable for U.S. students?

"It's going to be very important to establish friendships," he said. "We want to develop a good sense of trust and cooperation between our institutions."

Weisenstein said he hoped the effort will bring more students from Cuba to West Chester and lead to more faculty exchanges.

"I know many of our students would love to spend a two-week faculty-led educational experience there, perhaps a semester," he said.

He said he also hopes a collective bid West Chester and Cheyney made to the association to host its new institute on African and Arab studies will get approval while they are on the trip.

Weisenstein's trip, which he said would cost about $5,000, will be covered by West Chester's foundation, its fund-raising arm. Pogue will pay his own way, he said in a statement.