Project Albania

Project Albania is a quarter long study abroad program through the University of Denver that I am embarking on in the fall of 2005.

Students to help improve Albania’s infrastructure

By Jordan Ames

Sept. 13, 2005—A country rich in history yet torn apart by years of political turmoil, corruption and civil war, Albania is struggling to find its identity in modern Europe. In September, a new 10-week servicelearning program will link University of Denver with Albanian students in an effort to improve Albania’s economic, physical and social infrastructures.

Twenty-four students from the Daniels College of Business and the Graduate School of International Studies will travel to New York, Brussels and Geneva to meet with United Nations and European Union leaders for briefings about Albania’s cultural and political situation. They will attend an intensive language and cultural orientation in Bologna, Italy, and participate in leadership training in Athens, Greece, before joining their Albanian teammates—engineers, business students and social science students chosen through a national competition—at the University of Tirana.

The group will attend classes team-taught by DU and Albanian professors. The interdisciplinary courses will address the business, social and engineering needs of the global development process. Students will complete site, economic, social and health assessments of Keneta, an informal encampment of 35,000 migrants near the Adriatic Sea.

Through the Cherrington Global Scholars program, DU undergraduate students are able to participate in the 18-credit program at the same cost as attending a quarter of classes on campus. The course also is partially funded through a DU Public Good Grant.

“The Daniels College of Business has a 15-year history of service-learning,” says marketing Prof. Bruce Hutton, who will co-lead the program with management Senior Lecturer Sylvester Houston. “Our goal is to teach the value of service and how it fits into the ethical mindset and the business environment.”

The Albania project was initiated in 2004 by MBA and international studies graduate student Rick Escoe and was established through GlobalNETWORK, a nonprofit he established to encourage students to apply theory to real-world development issues. The project is now a joint venture between DU and GlobalNETWORK.

Escoe hopes that the DU student presence in Albania will be ongoing. “Our goal is to start a process that will allow Albania to become self-sufficient and prosper on its own,” Escoe says.

In 2006, a second team of DU students will travel to Albania to develop a waste treatment plant, create a business incubation program and assist with social projects to help orphans and disadvantaged groups, utilizing the assessment results of the previous team.

This article was originally published in The Source, September 2005.