conference call transcription 2011 0328.doc

Conference Call

March 28, 2011

Discussion of the RFPs for University Partnerships in Journalism with Balkh, Kandahar and Shaikh Zayed (Khost) Universities Participants:

Katherine Onorato, Public Affairs, U.S. Embassy, Kabul

Richard Boyum, University Partnerships Coordinator, Office of Press & Public Diplomacy, Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs

Ellen Delage, Afghanistan/Pakistan Program Specialist

Grachel Humphries, Grants Officer Nathan Edgerton, Grants Specialist Merrie Blocker, Coordinator, Afghanistan and Pakistan Public Diplomacy Programs Michael Keating, University of Massachusetts

Peter Young, San Jose State

Diane Guerrazzi, San Jose State

Sean Aday, George Washington University

Tom Gouttiere, University of Nebraska, Omaha

Jim Willis, Ball State University

Justin Miller, Ball State University

Ken Holland, Ball State University

Kevin McNamara, Purdue University

Adam Levin, University of Pennsylvania

Ken Harper, Syracuse University

Trisha O’Connor, Coastal Carolina University Joe Foote, University of Oklahoma

Ms. Onorato: I know someone asked if I could run through the universities again. In the interest of time I’m not going to do that, but this call is being recorded and we’ll have a full transcript up on line that will include a list of the participants so you will be able to review who was on the call at that time to see who your competition is.

My name is Katherine Onorato, for those of you who didn’t catch it earlier. I’m at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul at the Public Affairs Department. I am the local or Afghanistan lead on these journalism partnerships, and currently calling in from Kunduz up north in Afghanistan. I’m on a little bit of a field trip right now to one of the universities up here.

At this point I’m going to let the folks in D.C. introduce themselves, their name, and a little bit about their role as relevant, and then we will plunge into talking about these RFPs.

Thank you all for joining us, I should say also, and welcome. We’re very excited to have so many folks on the call with us.

Over to D.C.

Mr. Boyum: This is Richard Boyum speaking here in Washington at the South Central Asia Public Affairs Office, Afghanistan/ Pakistan Support Unit. My role here is working on university partnerships and program administration for Afghanistan/ Pakistan. And we have with us --

Ms. Delage: I’m Ellen Delage. I’m a Program Specialist here, Afghanistan/Pakistan Implementation Team. I’m basically administrative and program support for others in Washington and Kabul.

Mr. Edgerton: Nathan Edgerton here. I work with Grachelle Humphries, the Grants Officer on reporting requirements and reviewing the reports grantees submit to our office.

Ms. Blocker: I’m Merrie Blocker, and I’m the Coordinator for Afghanistan and Pakistan Public Diplomacy Programs.

Ms. Humphries: I’m Grachel Humphries. I’m the Grants Officer for the South and Central Asia Bureau. So Nathan and I work very closely and we can help you out with any administrative questions on the proposal and the project in reporting.

Ms. Onorato: At this point I think we’re going to kind of jump in. I’m going to give a couple of points on overview, and then from the questions submitted in advance I have selected just a few of those that I think are pertinent to everyone that everyone really needs to hear the answer to. I’ll go through those, and then I’m going to open it up for questions. So if you’ve submitted questions in advance that I don’t address at the beginning and that you don’t get a chance to ask during the call, we will post an addendum to this call on grants.gov and you’ll be able to see a written answer to your question at that time. So we will get through them all whether on the call or in writing afterwards and everyone will be able to see the answers to all of the questions.

The first thing I wanted to just review is that this call is about all three RFPs, all three universities -- Balkh, Kandahar, and Shaikh Zayed University in Khost. There will be a fourth RFP coming of a similar design for Nangarhar University, but for various reasons that one is coming on a little bit of a slower timeline, but you should know that that will be in the pipeline.

There were quite a few questions submitted in advance that had to do with some of the basic statistics and descriptions of the universities, the numbers of students, departmental priorities and the like. We do at this point have two overviews, one for Balkh and one for Kandahar that are live on grants.gov, posted along with the RFP. They took a little bit more time to get up there so you may not have seen them prior to submitting questions. I just received the information for the Shaikh Zayed overview today, so that will likely be up hopefully tomorrow. So I’m not going to address any of those very specific university questions that are already on those overviews. If there is something that we don’t cover and you don’t see on the overviews, you’re welcome to submit additional questions to us or to ask the universities directly as you’re getting in touch with them.

I know with regards to the university point of contact, I know at least one person has tried to reach out to Balkh and hasn’t had a response as of Friday. Last week was Nowruz, so quite a few people were on holiday. We’re hoping that as you’re reaching out you will be getting more rapid responses. But please do let me know if you are not getting a response and I will do what I can on the ground here to make sure that people are getting back to you.

I’m just going to pause here and do a sound check. Can you guys hear me okay? Am I cutting in and out or anything?

Voices: No, you sound great.

Ms. Onorato: Great, excellent. We had a little bit of trouble with the line earlier and it’s always sort of a game of luck when you’re calling from Afghanistan.

I’m going to go on at this point to a few of the questions submitted ahead of time.

The first is with regards to applying for multiple RFPs, and this applies to folks that are already in active partnerships or folks that might wish to apply to multiple RFPs.

I think in general we will not automatically disregard your proposal because you either already have an existing partnership with an Afghan university or because you’re applying for multiple partnerships, but what we would need to see is a very clear argument for why we should consider one university to cover multiple partnerships here in Afghanistan. We’ll be looking for much more than cost savings. We’ll be looking for the program quality and reasons for the shared partnership between multiple universities. So if you’re intending to apply for multiples, then I think just think really carefully and make sure your argument is clear in the proposal about why you would like to be managing multiple partnerships.

The second question I wanted to address, there were some questions about faculty versus department, because there are some notes in these RFPs about some of the universities are upgrading to a faculty; some are a department already, some are looking to establish a department. So I’m just going to run through quickly what that structure looks like in Afghanistan.

Basically a department is the smaller unit and a faculty is the larger unit. A faculty can contain two or more departments. Universities in Afghanistan tend to want to build up the number of faculties they have. It’s seen as a mark of prestige and importance of a university. So, many are trying to upgrade. At this point Balkh University has already been approved for an upgrade to a faculty. Kandahar is interested. They’re at the other end of the scale. They’re interested in establishing a department, so they have no current instruction in journalism at this point. And Shaikh Zayed is in the middle. They are currently a department looking for an upgrade.

So basically a department is kind of like a major in the United States. The course work from department to department within a faculty would need to defer by at least a year and sometimes it’s much more radical than that. There is a faculty of literature at most universities, and some of the departments within that would include Dari or English language. It could be a department of Spanish. So we’re talking about a whole different language, but all fitting with the faculty of literature.

The other thing to note around the course structure and curricular structure is that as San Jose State learned, the concept of electives is not very well known here. Most students move through their department with the same selection of courses from year to year. There are many different reasons for that, not just cultural, though that is a significant one.

So when we’re talking about a department and students within a department, they’re actually all taking the same courses in year one, year two, year three, and year four.

The last general question I wanted to address was university input during the process. We have already had some discussions with the universities that you’ll see reflected within the overviews and the RFPs. Once the proposals are submitted, they will be reviewed by an embassy committee first, and then the content of the proposals will be shared with the university for their feedback. What happened in the first couple of rounds was we received the university’s pros and cons for each of the proposals.

We would not make a decision to go with a proposal that the university was not on-board with. We will strive for consensus. That said, we won’t necessarily just take the university’s first choice if we believe there is a proposal with greater strength. We would have a conversation to discuss it and oftentimes that process involves going back to the original applicant and determining if there are components that could be added or changed within the proposal structure.

I’m going to pause there and ask the D.C. team if they would add anything to the information I have shared so far about those topics.

Mr. Boyum: No, I think that’s a good intro, Katherine. Unless Grachel has anything that might be coming up in more specifics later.

Ms. Humphries: I don’t.

Ms. Onorato: Then I’m actually going to ask the rest of you, we don’t want to spend too much time just on these, but if anyone has any follow-up questions to what I just shared, please --

San Jose State: Katherine, this is Peter from San Jose.

For everybody, what she said about our experience in San Jose was true. No electives.

That said, I want to just clarify on the multiple RFPs. We are genuinely interested in two of them. Are you hinting that we should really probably just go for one? I ask in part because I don’t want to spin your guys’ wheels if that’s what you’re really kind of looking at.

Ms. Onorato: I wouldn’t say I’m hinting. What I am saying is that if you are going to apply for more than one there has to be, I would say, a very strong reason why we should consider one of the same universities over a new university.

I’m very impressed with the number of universities on this call, and I think it’s in our interest at the embassy to get multiple universities involved in addition to the ones that are already involved here. But if we see an incredibly strong rationale for some synergy and collaboration between a current university partner and one of the other sites, I think it’s entirely possible we would go ahead with that.

Ms. Blocker: This is Merrie Blocker from Washington. I just wanted to add a little bit more explanation to this.

One of the goals of this funding is to build mutual understanding between the United States and Afghanistan. That is to help the U.S. understand Afghanistan, as well as to help the Afghan people to understand us. So the more universities we can get involved, we figure the more people are going to be able to have mutual understanding with Afghanistan. So that’s where we’re coming from.

GW University: This is Sean Aday from GW.

I’d ask the question a little differently. If we apply for more than one. Let’s say hypothetically we applied for two but we were applying in a way that each proposal was a stand-alone proposal that was meant to be as strong as possible for each of those, would you potentially choose the strongest of the two, as opposed to thinking of us in terms of having two, you would say well, your proposal for Kandahar was strong relative to the competition so we’ll take that one, but not your proposal for the other three?

Ms. Onorato: I would say that would be fair. If you’re not intending to get multiple but you want to apply for more than one, I think what you just said makes sense. Merrie or anyone in D.C., do you have a different take on that?

Voice: Could I hear that question again? The volume wasn’t too good on that.

Ms. Onorato: Go ahead, Sean.

GW University: I was saying that what if we applied for two, but only intend to do one and we’re just giving the embassy the option of choosing us for one or the other. As long as we make that clear in the RFP that we’re not trying to do two at once, would they consider them individually on their merits?

Voice: And what was the response to that?

Ms. Onorato: I said yes, that’s fine, unless D.C. has anything else to add to that.

Voice: I don’t understand. What’s fine?

Ms. Onorato: you can submit more than one. For universities that do not have a current partnership, if GW, for instance, wants to submit one for Balkh and one for Kandahar and not include a rationale for why they should get both, they’re just trying to get one of the above. That’s fine. And we’ll take a look at that and see what we think, but that wouldn’t count against you in the process that you had applied for more than one.

GW University: Is D.C. okay with that? I didn’t hear an answer there.

Mr. Boyum: Yes, that’s a fine procedure.

Ms. Humphries: D.C.’s fine. If we don’t say anything it means we agree with Katherine.

[Laughter].

Ms. Onorato: Other questions, either about what I’ve already covered or opening up for new questions at this point.

San Jose State: This is Peter. As you know, I sent you lots of questions. Can we go through any of those? I don’t want to --

Ms. Onorato: You can pick one, and then I want to hear from a different university about another question they have. So pick your most important.

San Jose State: Well, I think they’re all important in terms of things, but I’ll just go from the top.

This series of RFPs calls for no Master’s Degree. We at San Jose State are going “yay.” That said, the faculty training expectations on each one of these three RFPs, I guess what I was looking for in terms of quantification. I didn’t see any total number of hours, either required or desired. I didn’t see the subjects, though there are leanings towards the faculties and the departments, TV broadcasting, et cetera. So I was hoping that you could clarify some of the training expectations there.

Ms. Onorato: You’re probably not going to like my answer because I’m not exactly going to clarify. There is no specific number of hours, no specific subjects. The kind of training an applicant might choose to build into their proposal depends wholly on the objectives and the goals that the applicant would lay out in the grant. What we would look for is do we think the goals and objectives are right on, given the university context and what we’re trying to achieve with this project. Then is the training being proposed aligned to the goals and objectives, and do we think there is sufficient time dedicated to whatever the activities are to really achieve them? So my answer is kind of well, that’s really up to the applicant. That’s my answer.

Ms. Blocker: This is D.C., Merrie Blocker.

Two things. One, Katherine, I just want to make clear, you are going to write the answers to all the other questions and we’ll post them on Grants.Gov?

Ms. Onorato: Yes, absolutely.

Ms. Blocker: Okay. Then on this one about training I just want to ask a question. If somebody came in with a proposal that all the training took place in Afghanistan, would that be acceptable?

Ms. Onorato: I think at this point, and Richard I’d be curious to hear your take on this as well. With what you said about mutual understanding, I think we would probably expect to see some level of training or exchange happening in the U.S. That said, I think we’re also very focused on what is happening in Afghanistan. We want to really base a lot of the activities that we’re funding here because we think not only is there cost savings but there is a significant amount of impact that can occur when it takes place in the country.

If it was all in Afghanistan it would need to be a pretty strong rationale. And it might be a little bit out of line with what we’ve seen before.

Richard, do you have a different take on that?

Mr. Boyum: Yes, I think the other aspect is journalism in Afghanistan and faculties of journalism or departments of journalism have sort of been frozen because of the history and so they are using curriculum from the ‘60s and maybe early ‘70s, the world of journalism now with the multi-media aspect integrated, between print and broadcast, the line dissolving. I think really the only way to move it forward is to have some of that exposure to how things are done on a first-hand basis, noodling around the departments and universities here, and being able to carry that back from a first-hand experiential point of view.

Ms. Onorato: Exactly.

Mr. Boyum: One more comment. I think the other thing we’ve been looking at in terms of U.S. exchange is looking at the faculty level. I think it’s a little bit problematic to consider bringing students. I don’t know if you want to comment on that.

Ms. Onorato: That’s a good point. I would say we’re not eager to add additional student exchanges to what we’re currently doing. That’s important to note.

Voice: You don’t want us to bring students over here? To the U.S.?

Ms. Onorato: There are quite a few issues with undergraduate or younger students on exchange in the U.S. And I think we’ve heard a lot from the Afghan universities also that, well, if you’re investing in building our capacity, shouldn’t you be investing largely in the professors? And while I definitely see an argument to be made about why you would target students as well, I think that point is a fair one, so I think if we’re bringing people to the U.S. I think we’re really focused on looking at the faculty members.

Syracuse University: This is Ken Harper from the Newhouse School.

I’m kind of new to all this business and we’re doing a big project in Liberia and looking to expand some training and just kind of getting our feet wet in some of this area. Is it normal for, this grant application RFP was released like maybe two or three weeks ago, a month ago? How long ago was it released? March 23rd, is that correct?

Ms. Onorato: Exactly.

Syracuse University: Is that kind of timeframe normal for something that seems really complicated? I’m just trying to wrap my head around all of this.

[Laughter].

Voice: This is Afghanistan.

Ms. Onorato: That’s a good question.

Syracuse University: It’s pretty intense for a month turn-around from the time you even hear about it.

Ms. Onorato: That’s a fair point and I think some of our other RFPs have been longer. We’re trying to move this process relatively quickly for a variety of reasons, and we’ve been delayed in posting the RFPs. So it’s probably shorter than average.

Syracuse University: That’s good to know.

I actually have another meeting, but I wanted to stick my nose in here and introduce myself and thank you for giving me some enlightenment at least on a cursory level here. I apologize that I have to take off, but thank you guys very much.

Ms. Onorato: Thank you. Good to meet you.

Ball State University: This is Jim Willis at Ball State. I have a question, if I could.

We’ve been partnering with a couple of the large media companies on other ventures. Would that be appropriate for this if we brought in a media partner?

Ms. Onorato: Can you give a little more detail on that?

Ball State University: We have partnerships with the New York Times. We run a program through the Knowledge Network for them. We’re also partnering with them on another State Department grant as well for summer institutes. I was wondering if it would be appropriate to bring them in on this as a partner with us.

Ms. Onorato: I don’t have expertise. I don’t know if there are restrictions on who the partners are on this.

Ball State University: I don’t know whether to bring them in or not.

Ms. Blocker: This is Merrie Blocker from D.C. You should base your decision on the quality of the program. If bringing them in is good for the quality of the program, then do it.

Also for everybody, if you have another State Department grant, put in your proposal that you do when you’re talking about the background of your university. And give us the name of the person at the State Department who is your contact on that grant. For example this Ball State/New York Times one. If anybody’s got State Department grants tell us about them and tell us who your contact is.

Ball State University: Merrie, I’m sorry. I didn’t get your affiliation.

Ms. Blocker: I’m the Afghanistan/Pakistan Program Coordinator for Public Diplomacy Programs here at the State Department.

Ball State University: Thank you.

GW University: Can you tell us something about the GMIC and the PRTs in the cities and where you expect them to be in the next year or two?

Ms. Onorato: I’m sorry. You said talk about the --

GW University: GMIC --

Ms. Onorato: The GMIC and the PRTs?

GW University: Right. In other words, on the GMIC side, the one in Kandahar is [inaudible]. But I don’t know if they’re operational [inaudible] during the timeframe [inaudible]. And with the PRTs --

Ms. Onorato: You’re cutting in and out a little bit but I think I understand your question so I’m going to jump in. If I didn’t get it right you can correct me afterwards.

The GMIC, for those of you that are not familiar with it, is the Government Media Information Center. It is a U.S. embassy funded endeavor to support the Afghan government’s media capacity, essentially. They run press conferences out of there, they do some training and internships, and overall it’s also, along with [inaudible]’s partnership intended to build capacity within the field of journalism but more targeted at the government and ministries.

There is currently one in Kabul. There is also currently one in Kandahar. I note there is one in the pipeline for Nangarhar. I don’t know, I’m wondering if anyone in D.C. knows anything more about GMIC plans.

Ms. Humphries: They are planning to spread into the provinces and into the ministries, but it’s just a matter of capacity building at this point which will determine when those will actually begin to happen.

Mr. Boyum: Katherine, this GMIC is [inaudible] the media center --

Ms. Onorato: -- outside of Kandahar. Kandahar is the only provincial GMIC that exists right now.

Voice: The others are notional. All right.

Ms. Onorato: Exactly.

San Jose State: Katherine, this is Peter. How is the media center -- Ms. Onorato: You were going to ask a follow-up question?

GW University: I think Peter had a question about the difference between the GMIC and what’s described in the RFP as media centers. Maybe you could answer that.

Ms. Onorato: Largely it has to do with target audience. The Media Operation Center is really targeted for university students and professors. The actual setup is a little different, though I’m not so familiar with the GMIC structure. But I think really the target user audience is the major difference so that the GMIC would pull more government employees and journalists and the Media Operation Center is university based.

Ms. Blocker: Katherine, this is Merrie again. Let me add something, and Katherine, tell me if I’m wrong, but as I understand it what we’ve done is we’ve funded the construction of media centers in many universities and this is to give people there the equipment to learn on and to work with. Small radio stations, printing apparatus, computers, whatever you need in order to actually do journalism because they have no equipment. So that’s what a media center is.

Ms. Onorato: Exactly. And I think there’s a fair amount of detail about that contained in the RFP and also in materials posted on the web site. There is a draft equipment list for what will be contained within the Media Operations Center which is current radio and TV production facilities as well as an outline of the technical training which is already in the existing grant. So that means you all would not need to necessarily cover that type of training on the actual equipment at the Media Operations Center in your proposals.

The training included in the construction grant would be fairly limited in terms of number of people, but I think the big difference is the partnerships we’re looking for, we need you all to think creatively about how to really integrate the Media Operations Center into the life of the community, the journalism department or faculty, and how to get folks using it effectively, and how to make it a sustainable endeavor, something that instead of just having a lock put on it and the door closed, which has happened with some of the infrastructure that has gone in at university [inaudible], really actually getting people to use it, love it, and be creative with it.

Mr. Boyum: Katherine, another comment. This is Richard again here in Washington.

In U.S. journalism departments, you have integration of those facilities with the curriculum. The student-produced magazines and newspapers, web sites, the student radio, student TV. Even student TV that goes out over the air to the local community. In some places the local community TV is the student university studio, et cetera. That’s how I think these centers are being envisioned, is being a total service to the university community from top to bottom.

Ms. Onorato: As you point out, Richard, this is a real opportunity to integrate practical information, which is not the main mode of instruction here in Afghanistan. It’s largely teacher-centered lecture, copying down notes. So the Media Operations Center provides a completely different instructional opportunity.

Mr. Boyum: It’s a paradigm shift in education, moving toward experiential learning that’s part and parcel of how we do things but very very new in Afghanistan.

Mr. Edgerton: This is Nathan in D.C. Grachel or maybe someone at UNO can correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe at the Kabul Media Operation Center the only part of that that will be live, in a sense, is the radio studio. The TV studio I believe is self-contained for just training, not for broadcasts.

Ms. Onorato: That’s right. Thank you, Nathan. That is absolutely correct. But there will be a radio studio included in the Media Center budget.

Mr. Edgerton: I don’t know if you have information on what will be the status of those at the other universities, if they will be all broadcast or just training at this point.

Ms. Onorato: It’s the same model as in Herat and the other four. It will be just the radio transmitter. The television will not have a transmitter included. It will be just be [inaudible] products.

GW University: Katherine, my follow-up was about the PRTs and their future over the course of this three year project, especially in Kandahar and Khost. Are these places where we would have, people that we brought in there would have access to? I’m thinking of security and transportation and others.

Ms. Onorato: Fair question. I think the first thing I want to emphasize is we are looking for grantees that are independent and can manage their transportation and lodging independently. I think probably the two exceptions to that are that there are no commercial flights currently going to Khost or Nangarhar yet, so the embassy would likely be supporting transportation to those two locations. The other locations, there are commercial flights. There are also guest houses and hotels that other international NGOs use.

The PRTs are not currently and will not be playing a role in lodging or coordinating logistics. So that is something extremely important that potential applicants need to really pay a lot of attention to in thinking through are you in a position to manage that yourself? Are there local partners that you would need to identify to get some assistance in organizing that?

So while I don’t think anyone at this point knows exactly the future of the PRTs, and I haven’t been integrally involved in the discussions around that, I think probably most have seen that Karzai has announced the close-down in the near future of some of the more stable areas and that will be an eventual, who knows, an eventual phase-out of all of them presumably at some point. But I think Balkh and Herat you should also note will have U.S. consulates so there will be U.S. staff out there. But same answer as before, those people will not be in a position to be responsible for organizing your travel or security or any of that.

Ms. Humphries: This is Grachel. I was looking through the RFP and all I see about that is a statement saying “Knowledge of working conditions in Afghanistan can be important for a successful proposal and a successful project.”

As important as your project and program objectives are and how you will meet that, equally important is for us to know what will be your support administrative infrastructure in Afghanistan. If you will need to partner with another university, an NGO, a U.S.-based NGO, a third country NGO or an Afghan NGO, that will provide you all of that logistical support. Your housing, your security, making your appointments, your travel arrangements, who’s going to do your filing and your photocopying. So as much information as you can gather by the time you have to submit the proposal will be really helpful for us to know.

Ms. Blocker: This is Merrie Blocker. I wanted to ask something about Nangarhar and Khost where there is not commercial air. What I heard you say, Katherine, is that the embassy would help with transportation to those places. Are there hotels or guest houses in Nangarhar and Khost where people can stay?

Ms. Onorato: Yes, there are, and there are international NGOs that currently have individuals staying in those guest houses.

We are working on developing a list of resources that other people have used. That does not constitute a recommendation on our part, but in the information-sharing capacity we will be able to share a list of hotels, of driver services or interpretation services that others have used and found to be good. But that doesn’t, again, suggest a recommendation on the part of the Department of State.

Ms. Blocker: Could you include on that list the international NGOs that are working in each of these cities? Because they might be interesting partners for administration and logistics for the universities.

Ms. Onorato: There is an implementing partners list on-line right now that I’m sure many of you have seen that is a starting point. I think also working through whether it is a local partner or through those partners, I think you will probably be able to find and develop that list.

I can’t say that the embassy will be able to issue a full list of all international NGOs working in each city, but it is something that we may be able to facilitate if you can’t identify those organizations independently.

GW University: I don’t want to hog the time, but I have one quick question. Are degree or certificate programs [inaudible] part of the existing program [inaudible] Herat?

Ms. Onorato: I’m sorry. I can’t hear your question. Can you speak up a little bit?

GW University: I’m sorry. Are degree and certificate programs and distance learning programs part of the Kabul and Herat existing [inaudible]?

San Jose State: Degrees are, but not certificates.

Ms. Onorato: Exactly.

GW University: And distance learning?

San Jose State: Yes. Distance learning is included.

Katherine, do you want me to give some details or not? This is Peter.

Ms. Onorato: No, that’s all right. A Master’s Degree program is part of the previous partnerships that we are not going to entertain in these proposals. I think we believe that applicants can put together a very strong proposal that does not include degrees.

One of the barriers that should be clear looking at the RFPs is the level of English language ability, so while there are many work-arounds for delivery of training or different timelines that can be developed that would allow for English language development, if we’re working a Master’s Degree into these proposals I think it becomes incredibly challenging to have sufficient qualified applicants to participate in that program, and we’d prefer to really have the training targeted to what the objectives are for the grant and not to get overly focused on the broader Master’s. So I think this is capacity building, writ large, not degree acquisition.

Mr. Boyum: Katherine, another comment on, since the question of distance learning came up.

Access to bandwidth for various modes of distance learning is problematic and varies wildly from place to place, so a status of internet accessibility for the site you’re interested in looking at is important to get a handle on. And also then to build in some kind of flexibility so that the low bandwidth, internet web site, that sort of blackboard type exchange and interaction up to audio and then the full-fledged video conferencing web cam has not been very successful yet.

You may have read or may know about the SILK-Afghanistan-NATO project to bring high bandwidth. We’re still waiting for that to be fully implemented everywhere. Just have a Plan A and Plan B if you’re looking at distance learning, I think. You need a high tech and a mid tech capability there.

Ms. Onorato: I think the other piece of that is that the electricity is highly irregular and there are no electricity grids in some areas, so some universities are entirely powered by generators and [inaudible] the electricity issues and limited bandwidth make all of that challenging, but there are some mid to low tech options there. SILK-Afghanistan internet will be installed in all of the six sites where these partnerships will or are in operation, but don’t be overly reliant on being able to do VTCs from day one.

Mr. Boyum: I think the “post it and look at it when you can and respond” type of facilities and sites and software packages are out there, are workable, because they can get in and out when they can. The scheduled video conferences or teaching a class with a professor on-line live to a group at a scheduled time, that’s pretty dicey.

San Jose State: This is Peter. The English language training seemed to be a major part of all three of the RFPs. To your point a moment ago in terms of the levels of both the professors and the students, the question I have is will the eventual grantee have access either to ELFs in the region or any additional State Department assets related to English language training? I know Richard, maybe you could speak to this from your New Orleans conference. We have some ideas at San Jose State, but we also discovered that there are lots of, not lots, but there are other assets out there for English language training.

Ms. Onorato: There are some other assets out there, and for those who aren’t familiar with the term, an ELF is an English Language Fellow, a State Department funded English language teacher posted at some of the universities.

You should not assume that there will be State Department resources independent of the proposal that are available to be put towards English language development specifically of journalism faculties. It is possible that a university chancellor might make the decision independently once [inaudible] is up and going to prioritize journalism faculty members, but we would prefer that you build English language development into the grant proposal. The ELFs and the other programs targeting English language development already have their own set of objectives and priorities that don’t necessarily align to teaching journalism professors how to speak English. So you should not consider those as your resources to use.

Mr. Boyum: I think what Peter was referring to was part of the discussion at the meeting about a different RFP and grant, and comments on English training that has been taking place in India, or even somewhere like Malaysia, but sites in India have been contracted to provide venues and also some staff along with American fly-in staff to do intensive English courses for groups of Indians. That’s probably what Peter was referring to.

San Jose State: Thanks, Richard.

Ms. Humphries: You also should know, if you don’t already, that on Grants.Gov we have posted the whole transcript of the discussion in New Orleans for anybody who wasn’t there.

Ms. Onorato: Other questions?

San Jose State: I’m curious about, this is Peter again, on the approval dates for the Herat project. You know that it was pushed back for a variety of reasons that popped up a couple of times. What are we really looking for in terms of a timeframe for I guess any one of these three proposals?

Ms. Onorato: It is my intention, since I leave Afghanistan and this position June 19th, to have all three partners selected and hopefully finalized grant wise at that time. I think that’s ambitious and D.C. may be shuddering in their shoes about this. I think the part of the process that tends to take quite a bit of time is, once we have the university’s input, or the committee’s input, the committee review input, there’s some amount of back and forth that tends to go on with the applicant or applicants to determine if there are pieces that can be changed to get more information often with budget [inaudible]. In order to minimize that, you should remember that the more detail you can provide us with, the better off we’ll be once we kind of narrow it down and start negotiating with one or two applicants to identify the final one and move towards approval. So especially with budgets you should know that we will need a full line item budget with breakdowns for the sum totals in those lines.

I’ll see if anyone in D.C. has anything to add to that.

Mr. Boyum: I think that’s fine, Katherine.

Ms. Onorato: They’re not telling me I’m crazy, so that’s a good sign. I guess maybe there’s a possibility we can get --

Mr. Boyum: I would just say, and Grachel can chime in if she wants, just be thorough in your budget in justifying and describing exactly how the line items support the project.

San Jose State: For those of us on-line here that have an existing Afghanistan project, will we be able to at least point to budgetary and administration efficiencies when we apply for let’s just say Zayed’s, for example, or does it have to stand purely on its own?

Voice: Can you repeat? You said --

San Jose State: This is Peter Young. We’re the folks for Herat. It seems to me as I’m looking at these proposals that we will be able to build in a lot of efficiencies, but should we be building in those efficiencies when we submit our proposal?

Ms. Onorato: Yes. Because you already have an active partnership.

Ms. Humphries: You want to show us why we should give you two, right? So maybe one of your reasons is because you’ll save us a lot of money.

San Jose State: Good, because we will.

Ms. Onorato: I’m not saying that will win or anything, but it’s an argument.

Purdue University: This is Kevin McNamara at Purdue. I also have a question related to working with PRTs.

We have some ongoing activities with groups on PRTs with U.S. military folks. Would we be able to include them in what we’re doing if they’re interested in participation?

Mr. Boyum: What sort of activities are you -- Ms. Onorato: Can you give a little more detail about what types of activities?

Purdue University: We do a lot of training for agribusiness development teams being deployed, and we’re working with them once they’re deployed to help establish the university agriculture programs where they’re working. So we visit, but when we visit we’re under their security blankets. We travel on USAID air or military air and stay on the PRT and work with the U.S. National Guard folks at the universities where we’re working.

Ms. Onorato: If you get them to support you it would be helpful for us to have some sort of letter from the PRT stating exactly what support they’re willing to give you. So whether it’s transportation or security, they in their letter should outline what they’re willing to help you with.

Ms. Humphries: Let me say a caveat here. This is Grachel, on the State Department staff.

Let’s check this out a second because I do know that we’re supposed to be even-handed, so if a PRT says they’ll support one university but not all the universities, that might not be even-handed. So Purdue, let us check out what we need to do about that and put it up on Grants.Gov and tell you all.

Mr. Boyum: Kevin, maybe you could just shoot us an email outlining a little bit more clearly the relationship and how if it’s run through your grant from AID or scoping out that PRT/military relationship just a little bit.

Ms. Humphries: I imagine when AID competed it the PRT support would have been there for whoever won.

Purdue University: Again, this is not through USAID. This is through the Department of Defense.

Ms. Humphries: Whichever, it doesn’t matter. But the basic principle of the U.S. government in competitions is let’s be the same for everybody. So I want to check this out. So yes, if you would send something in, let’s look at that.

Purdue University: Okay.

Ms. Onorato: We’re coming up against time. Is there one last question?

San Jose State: Katherine, this is Diane from San Jose. I had a quick question.

When I hear Kandahar, I think it’s dangerous. What is the status currently?

Ms. Onorato: I think it’s dangerous. What I would recommend, Diane, is perhaps that you have a conversation with Ken Holland, actively working down there. Perhaps he could give you his perspective on that. I’m not sure if anyone in D.C. wants to add to that.

Ms. Humphries: No. At post, you know better than we know.

Ms. Onorato: We’re talking about operating in Afghanistan, so I would say that everyone needs to be aware of security risks throughout the entire country. While the security situation is quite different in Balkh than it is in Kandahar, there is risk everywhere. And so if you’re not already working here I would strongly encourage you to talk with folks that are, if you’re not working in a region you’re thinking about applying for, I would recommend you talk with folks that are. Or find other Afghan partners that can share their perspective as well.

I think also one thing Richard and I keep returning to in talking about these and other grants is that the greater contact you have with Afghan partners that you trust, the better informed you’re going to be and the better decisions you’re probably going to make.

I think I should officially encourage you all to look at our travel warning on State.Gov.

Mr. Boyum: You talked a little bit about work-arounds, and in terms of places like Kandahar or the more interesting or dangerous ones, you may have to build in a certain amount of activity that would happen in Kabul where a selected number of people would come and have workshops or training or contact in another location, whether it’s Kabul or another city nearby or something. If it’s difficult to spend a lot of time at the host institution, maybe they can meet halfway or in some other place in Afghanistan.

Ms. Blocker: Another thing, be clear. We ask that the grantee provide security for themselves and for their operation, but you can definitely put those costs into the budget.

Ms. Onorato: Absolutely. Thank you, Merrie, for mentioning that.

I think we are up against time. I’m not sure if we’re going to get cut off here as we’re finishing up our hour, but I do want to thank you for your participation and for your questions. And remind everyone that we will be posting answers to the questions we did not get to as well as a transcript of this call. We encourage you to continue to send questions to us that we will either save for the next call or respond to publicly on Grants.Gov.

The next call will be April 14th at the same time, and we’ll distribute call-in information in advance, although I would assume that it’s actually going to be mostly the same information. But we will send it out to everyone that’s been on this call in advance.

I think that’s it. Does anyone from D.C. have anything else in wrap-up?

Mr. Boyum: Prior to our coming on did you get contact information for all the participants?

Ms. Onorato: Yes. I have everyone’s name and contact information. I think we’ve been in touch with everyone, I believe, at this point.

Unless, did anyone else join throughout the call that did not give their name and university at the beginning?

[No audible response].

I think we’re good. Anything else from D.C.?

Mr. Boyum: I think we’re fine here. It’s good to have everyone interested.

Ms. Onorato: Thank you all for joining and we look forward to further correspondence with you and hopefully hearing from you and seeing your proposals. Thank you.

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