Cal Poly president Warren Baker and other American university leaders visited Israel and Palestine for an intense week-long educational seminar called Project Interchange Seminar in Israel for university presidents that focused on complex issues facing Israel and the region.
Over the course of the week, the 13-member delegation met with Israeli President Shimon Peres, Palestinian National Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and U.S. Ambassador to Israel James B. Cunningham. The seminar was sponsored and overseen by Project Interchange, an educational institute of the American Jewish Committee.
The mission of Project Interchange is to foster a community of highly influential global leaders informed about the various dimensions of Israel, including the work of their professional counterparts, said Project Interchange spokesman Amit Katzir.
“A primary goal of the university presidents seminar in particular is to encourage bilateral academic collaboration and exchange at the undergraduate, graduate and faculty levels,” he said.
The delegates learned about an important part of the world and the opportunities for U.S. higher education, Baker said. The seminar focused primarily on efforts to ensure a more peaceful world by people getting to know each other better and collaborating.
“A lot of people think informal approaches at a grass roots level ease tension,” Baker said. “Through education, we discussed with Palestinians and Israelis to better understand the issues.”
During the week, educational and government leaders visited Israeli institutions Tel Aviv University, Technion, Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Al-Qasemi College. Baker said he also visited West Bank, where he and the group met with Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to talk about community and school development.
Exposure to the unique programs, coursework, faculty and research being conducted at each university in Israel is the first step in developing fruitful bilateral partnerships, Katzir said. It opens channels for communication and helps the visiting presidents determine how universities stand to benefit most from the collaboration and exchange.
“The idea is to lay ground work for exchanges of students to occur,” Baker said. “How quickly this happens depends on perceptions and reality of security.”
Peaceful coexistence is probably easier than resolving all the issues, he said. Everyone is in favor of academic collaboration; it’s just a matter of how it gets done. The Middle East’s role is important to the world and non-Jewish students could benefit from more exposure and historical perspectives, he said.
“It’s important for Cal Poly to open doors internationally,” Baker said. “It’s a part of the globalization that’s occurring and it’s important that we don’t isolate ourselves.”
Baker said he was most interested in why the Israelis were so successful in technology transfer to economic development and how the universities contribute. Right now the Israeli universities, governments and industries are working together to create an all electric car, not a hybrid, he said. The objective is to have the nation not use petroleum.
The Israeli institute’s extraordinary technological advances and entrepreneurship can be attributed to the highly educated students coming into the university, he said.
“Boys spend three years in the military and girls spend two, and the training prepared them well for college and instilled the entrepreneur spirit,” he said.
Along with education, they discussed their differences and claims to the land, Baker said. They also talked about human rights issues when they visited a 27-foot barrier wall equipped with intense checkpoints separating territories.
“It stops 99 percent of bombers but it doesn’t seem like it would last permanently. I have really never experienced anything where people are separated and there are checkpoints; it’s disturbing,” Baker said.
Baker said other memorable moments included meeting the prime minister and understanding what the Palestinians were facing as well as learning the Israeli president’s perspective. Bakes also now knows that Fayyad is very sensitive to the human condition and how he dedicates his life to peaceful solutions.
“It was a very rewarding experience,” Baker said. “I learned a lot, got a lot of experience and it was extremely informative and they used our time very effectively; from 6 a.m to 10 p.m.”