conference call transcription 2011 0420.doc

Conference Call April 14, 2011 Discussion of the RFPs for University Partnerships in Journalism with Balkh, Kandahar and Shaikh Zayed (Khost) Universities Participants:

Richard Boyum, South Central Asia Public Affairs Office

Ellen Delage, Afghanistan/Pakistan Program Specialist

Nathan Edgerton, Grants Office, South and Central Asia Bureau

Merrie Blocker, Coordinator, Afghanistan and Pakistan Public Diplomacy Programs Peter Young, San Jose State University Diane Guerrazzi, San Jose State University Sean Aday, George Washington University

Jim Willis, Ball State University

Ken Holland, Ball State University

Maggie Zanger, University of Arizona

Don Hinrichsen, IWPR, London

Marilyn Lewis, University of Nebraska, Omaha

Mr. Boyum: Last time we went through the submissions that were submitted. We can do that and take anything extra, or we can just open it up and have you ask questions. We’ve got a few pages of questions that have come in.

Voice: Why don’t we go through those?

Mr. Boyum: We can go through those and see how it looks. You guys chime in as we go.

This was a query:

Question: Are there certificate programs that must be completed prior to the end date of the grant that are not degree related?

Answer: No, this is the design of the proposal. The professional development is what you’re all about. It’s not a degree program, as was mentioned. Certificates or simply a series of courses in training, that’s up to you.

Question: Will Balkh University have by 2012 a media center much like the one that in Herat, University, or will the new media center at Balkh be scaled down or based on a different model?

Answer: They should have the same media center, same design, same materials. Equipment and training is listed on grants.gov. Construction will likely start before the end of 2011 and will take eight months to complete, so it will be operational at some point next academic year.

Voice: Is that eight State Department months or eight Afghani months or --

Mr. Boyum: Eight State Department or eight Afghani? It's construction months. [Laughter].

Voice: We just know that the Herat project is just a little bit behind, that’s why.

Mr. Boyum: To be expected, I’m afraid.

Voice: Also I understand that Balkh is building a new university on the edge of town and that there are actually a couple of buildings that have started, construction has started. The new media center I assume will be there. Will the new media center be with the new university or are they planning to house it in the old one?

Mr. Boyum: I don’t have the answer to that question. Katherine who is on the spot and has been there would know that.

Ball State: This is Jim Willis from Ball State.

Looking over your media operations training center outline, the different modules of it which total out it seemed like around 70 hours. About how much on-ground training would be needed by the American faculty at that site?

Mr. Boyum: I think that would be something you’d have to decide. Probably from your standpoint the practical application to --

Mr. Hinrichsen: [Joined call].

Mr. Boyum: We’ve just started out. The transcript will be on-line. We’ve gone through just a couple of questions. There are about five or six others on-line right now.

There was a question just now about the additional training. It indicated in the web site that there’s a training plan, a training outline for proficiency in radio, television and print operations. I don’t know, we can ask Katherine if there is any further [clarification] of what that does, but I think your own implementing from your own perspectives should be included in your draft.

Ball State: That’s one of the questions we have from my faculty here. First of all, how many people are we looking at?

Voice: For which university, though? That’s important. There are different numbers for different universities.

Ball State: This is the [inaudible] university.

Voice: There are eight faculty.

Ball State: I know that, but in terms of the number of people here that we would need to send, and I know we need to work that out. But obviously we need an engineer, we’ll need to send an engineer. But we’d also need to send a couple of faculty because there are content aspects to this, reporting aspects to it.

My question is, are we looking at maybe sending three individuals over there for a three week period to carry out this training? The 70 hours of training that’s on this program. Is that meant to be repeated more than one time? Are we looking at two or three different three-week scenarios where we’d have to send three or so individuals over?

Mr. Boyum: That’s up to you. That’s what goes into your proposal. If you are comfortable with sending three folks over, you cost it out, and you have a plan for them, what they would do. The 21-day timeline is probably a good idea, probably not much longer for any one stint in Afghanistan. That tends to be what other people do.

Ball State: I just didn’t know what the expectations were. However the expectations are still in the formation process, but you have the modules here. You specified the number of hours, and I just want to know if this was kind of a training session that would be repeated more than one time.

San Jose State: This is Peter Young from San Jose. Richard, I guess I’m not understanding the question. The grantee is not going to be the actual provider for the 70 hours. That comes with the media center grant separate.

Mr. Boyum: Yes, that’s correct.

San Jose State: So I’m not sure what the question is from Ball State. I’m not sure what you’re asking.

Ball State: Obviously the media center grant is meant to cover this training which is not going to be done by the on-site people there in Afghanistan. It’s going to be done by the American university in partnership with that.

Mr. Boyum: No, there’s a little confusion here.

The grant that is building the media center building, that grant includes the training of people to use that equipment. That’s what this training plan is.

London: This is Don. Sorry to interrupt. I have a lot of questions regarding the media centers. Are those centers that you are paying for separately, or has this got to be baked into this particular grant? I’m talking about Balkh University in this case. Because it’s not clear whether you’re building it separately or whether we have to provide a media center ourselves and equip it.

Mr. Boyum: Okay.

London: Most of these cases I assume they don’t have anything like that. I know in Balkh University, we’re already working with them, they don’t have much of anything.

Mr. Boyum: Let me clarify that then, and we can chime in here in D.C..

Embassy Kabul has issued a grant to a company to build these media centers at seven universities. Included with that is that once it’s up and built there is a training component that’s indicated and listed on the grant side. That has to do with the 60 or 72 hours, whatever the total is. That will all be done under the terms of that other media center grant. This is just for your information so that you’ll know that the center, what the facilities are there. There’s another document that lists all the equipment. Then there’s a document that lists what training they will have had by the time you guys show up. So any additional training or anything that you want to fine tune or add specifically for your content, that would be after what’s indicated here as the training center operation training outline.

Voice: Richard, can you tell us the name of the contractor who will be building the centers and also conducting the training?

Mr. Boyum: I think it’s Huda.

Ball State: Again, Jim Willis, Ball State. Then this whole media training center and this whole program that we have in front of us here, the grantee is not expected, or the individual university receiving the grant is not expected to be involved in that training, contracting for that equipment, or showing individuals how to use that equipment, is that correct?

Mr. Boyum: That’s correct.

Ball State: That’s one big point of confusion here because we’ve been going around and talking to engineers and showing them the list and seeing what their advice is in terms of what we need to spend there, so we don’t need to worry about that.

Mr. Boyum: No, that’s right.

Voice: Do you have any idea when these media centers will be up and running?

Mr. Boyum: Some have broken ground. They’re looking at eight to ten months or so for construction. The ones that have started have already faced a little bit of delay, but we’re hoping they’ll be functional by mid/end of 2012. We hope for the early part of ’12, but realistically, maybe mid.

Voice: That’s sort of what I thought as well. Thanks.

Mr. Boyum: That’s the media center. Here’s another one.

Question: Will drawdown of U.S. and NATO troops beginning in four to five months – with that drawdown, will overall security become an issue? Will these grants be pulled once U.S. troops are completely withdrawn, or will it be continued?

Answer: The answer is we do not expect to pull this grant. We expect grant activities to continue independently of the military strategy. We understand that successful execution of grant activities will be subject to developing security conditions. We seek applicants who are well aware of the past, current and future security risks and are ready and willing to execute projects with full awareness of those conditions and demonstrate this awareness in their proposals through appropriate budgeting and programming [inaudible].

Question: Another question here. Will proposals be allowed to creep over the RFP amount for a specific reason?

Answer: While budgets slightly larger than one million would not invalidate a proposal, applicants should strive to keep within budget guidelines.

Question: When a grant is issued and some circumstance arises if there’s some compelling justification, sometimes amendments are added if funding is available, correct?

Answer: It depends on availability of funding and justification for the project.

San Jose State: This is Peter from San Jose. Let me just give you a quick data point.

Air fares from San Francisco to Herat have, since we put in the proposal, have gone up $215 based on fuel surcharges, et cetera. In talking with a couple of colleagues in the airline biz, they suggested there is probably, if fuel goes up, it could probably tack on another $150 to $200 in this next year. Those are the kinds of things that we can anticipate now, I suppose, but it’s a shot in the dark. So that’s where the question really comes from.

Mr. Boyum: When we review the budget we’ll, of course, look to see that the costs are reasonable, so within your best estimate of what the costs will be. Of course any unexpended funds will be returned at the end of the grant period.

We’re not going to call the airlines and say how much is a ticket. That’s your judgment.

Ms. Delage: The key is often the budget narrative to adequately explain the cost. It’s not going to be an arbitrary set cost that’s predetermined, but a good explanation of why you’re charging certain fees.

Mr. Boyum: I have another one.

Question: Will the eventual approved university have to have staff in country for specific numbers of annual visits and/or total numbers of days to completely exercise the RFP requirement?

Answer: No. We do not ask for specific numbers. Proposals will be evaluated based on the alignment of project activities to grant goals and objectives, whether the committee determines a specific activity is allowed for successful fulfillment of grant objectives.

So your determination of what is appropriate in-country and whatever distance for U.S.-based contact is, that’s up to you in writing your grant.

University of Arizona: This is Maggie from the University of Arizona. Just going back to the budget, the budget actually is an appendix, right? It’s one of the five appendices that you have to include. I also understand you cannot include extra appendices, is that correct? Only the ones listed? This is in reference to Balkh.

Ms. Delage: That’s correct.

University of Arizona: I don’t see a budget narrative there. It says the budget is supposed to be one page, may not exceed one page in length. There doesn’t seem to be room there for a narrative. Am I misreading this?

Ms. Delage: It’s very confusing. I’ve been through this for some other grants. I don’t have my sheet in front of me, but I’m going to post it on grants.gov as soon as we finish this call. When you go through it, it could be better stated in the RFP but it actually does make sense when you look at it carefully. There’s a clear prescription of which document is to be attached where. I’ll put that up on-line.

University of Arizona: Great, thank you.

Ms. Delage: But there is room for a budget narrative, and it’s the budget that’s a one-sheet document, just a sheet of figures, but the narrative can be as long as you need it to be to adequately explain all the expenses.

Voice: And with that appendix explaining contributions, correct?

Ms. Delage: Right.

Mr. Boyum: Anything further on that point?

University of Arizona: I assume this will be clear in whatever you’re posting on-line, because it’s not in the RFP. It’s a one-page budget, and there is no room in the sections that consist of the proposal --

Ms. Delage: I will put it up and make sure it’s very clear about which documents, how long they can be and what [inaudible].

University of Arizona: Thank you.

Mr. Boyum: Another one regarding troop withdrawals.

Question: Will proposals be allowed to increase their security line based on troop withdrawals to cover the use of private security if necessary?

Answer: Applicants should build in any expected security costs. If it changes significantly, of course, we’d have to consider amending grants to ensure greater security for executive of approved duties.

Question: [Inaudible] Institute helped start an independent radio station and newspaper in 2004 in the Herat area. Were similar efforts started by anyone involved or close to Afghanistan?

Answer: The answer to that is see the overviews for radio stations and also see the media directory for a broader view of the media sector in Afghanistan. Those are up on grants.gov.

Ms. Delage: The list of media in Afghanistan.

Question: Will there be any sort of U.S.-sponsored contractor activities in the areas of Khowst or Balkh like that shown in Herat? AEDs, consulting groups, [inaudible] enhancement project.

Answer: There will be other USG-sponsored projects at all six universities including the higher ed project which is currently run by the U of Massachusetts.

Question: Is the department planning on adding any faculty over the next few years? If so, is there latitude about skill set expertise on new hires?

Answer: There is a good chance universities will hire additional or replacement faculty members during the next three years. Though universities are dependent on Ministry of Higher Education approval and for payment of salaries, universities do not fully control their own budget and are not legally allowed to raise money independently or accept donations from foundations or individuals. We would hope a grantee would be in a position relationship-wise to advise any university on the skill sets or expertise of new hires.

Question: Is it acceptable or desirable to include in the proposal hiring an on-the-ground project manager?

Answer: Yes. Unless U.S. staff will spend significant amounts of time on the ground in Afghanistan, a local project manager will likely be necessary to ensure smooth operation of the project.

Question: How is the curriculum [inaudible] in terms of general education and journalism specialization required in elective courses?

Answer: Balkh and Shaikh Zayed have course listings, you can see those on grants.gov, for the balance between general education and journalism. Electives are an unfamiliar concept not currently included in any department’s offering. San Jose State is attempting to build-in electives but do not yet know if the course selection has been approved by the Ministry of Higher Education. Also Kabul University is perceived as the main university of which others are branch campuses. The tendency for new departments is to copy the curriculum and course offerings of Kabul.

San Jose State: Let me just comment, for Diane and I at San Jose, that’s not exactly true now because the curriculum that we hammered out, actually Diane hammered out with the faculty and chancellor at Herat has been accepted by the ministry and is being implemented now. So it is not a duplication of Kabul.

Mr. Boyum: In fact at this point, Peter, we’re hoping to be meeting with Kabul journalists and faculty that are here in a couple of weeks out in Omaha. That’s the plan. Perhaps the mother ship has been passed by by one of the fledglings or something. [Laughter]. On the other hand for some of the other universities Kabul is being held up in very high esteem. I’m pleased that if you’ve hammered out the curriculum with Herat and it’s being approved, that’s great. There’s some innovation there.

Ball State: This is Jim from Ball State. At the conference in Indianapolis in January the Deputy Minister [inaudible] said that in these grant-funded projects he would like there to be a single national curriculum. So I think that’s a goal for the ministry. How it’s implemented, of course, is another question.

Mr. Boyum: Right. It’s an ongoing discussion.

Ball State: I want to go back again to the media operation center because I’m still a little cloudy on this. I understand now that the construction and the unpacking and all of that, the training on the equipment will be done by the contractor Huda, but there’s also a content recording part to this as well. Are they in the business of teaching how to do journalism and reporting as well, or is that part of the budget to be done by the American partners?

Mr. Boyum: We’re just following up on that right now. Let’s see, I’m looking at --

Ball State: Multimedia recording and --

Mr. Boyum: Where is that?

Ball State: That’s in Module 2 of the media operation training center program. They’ve got 12 hours of multimedia recording, they’ve got television production, radio production, [inaudible], --

San Jose State: This is Peter. Our experience so far has been that those modules will be minimal at best. That is the content creation modules that you’re referring to, that multimedia journalism is going to be here’s the button that you press, you [inaudible], articulate, tell the story, but it’s going to be in this case San Jose State’s duty, if you will, to go in and then to continue that effort. But they will be taught at least in theory, under the contract they’ll be taught all of the buttons and whistles and so forth on how to use them, but in terms of the nuances of journalism, that’s what our side does.

Ms. Delage: I’d like to reinforce that because the content part is the proposal. The key words here, in Module 2, are technological proficiency. That’s an important distinction to make.

Mr. Boyum: It’s clearly stated, technological proficiency includes production and communication tools, so I think when you’re talking multi-media reporting, I expect it will be what do you need to do multi-media reporting and how do you use it. Remote systems, mikes, et cetera, et cetera. And print publishing focusing more on the technology rather than on the craft.

Ball State: So they’re going to work on the production end and we would work on the content end, is that right?

Mr. Boyum: The production end as how to use the equipment for these different purposes. Then you come in with what to say and how to actually do it, how to be a journalist.

Voice: We’re the story-tellers.

Ball State: We just need to know whether or not we need to actually incorporate an engineer into this or not. So we’ve got plenty of engineers around to do it, but we just needed to know whether there’s an engineer that’s going to need to be involved in this.

Voice: The other part is, from a budget point of view a million dollars actually can’t be stretched too much further. So if you’ve got a problem [inaudible].

London: This is Don from London. I wouldn’t think a million dollars is enough to do a bunch of new structure. That’s something that’s going to have to be in the media centers and so on.

Mr. Boyum: There’s no infrastructure responsibility for you in this grant. It’s all how to be better journalists. How to teach journalism, more effective, modern, integrated, multi-media, whatever way. Don’t worry about the infrastructure.

Voice: If we know we have some infrastructure that can be used, that’s just a plus.

Mr. Boyum: Sure.

Ms. Blocker: This is Merrie Blocker, the Afghanistan/Pakistan Program Coordinator here at the State Department.

Let’s say that you’re supposed to work in a university that doesn’t have any infrastructure, then you have to figure out a way to work without infrastructure. Your role is not to put in the infrastructure.

London: My comment was if it already exists in some cases we could utilize that as part of the [inaudible], there wouldn’t be any additional costs in terms of a budget. We would have access to some, like a multi-media lab or something which could be then utilized as part of the project. You wouldn’t have any objection to that, I assume. It’s a value-added and it doesn’t cost you anything actually.

Mr. Boyum: In some cases like Herat there is a little radio station already while they’re waiting for the fancy one to be built. You can use what they’ve got.

London: That’s what I was thinking.

Is this deadline on the 22nd absolutely firm? It can’t be pushed back to the 25th? Just asking.

Mr. Boyum: It’s standing, as is.

London: The 22nd at midnight.

Mr. Boyum: For Balkh University, right.

Another question --

Question: Can applicants include PRT resources in the grant activities?

Answer: Public Affairs will not approve proposals that include reliance on military or civilian PRT resources for logistics or security.

There are a couple of reasons behind this decision. This grant is a civilian grant, funded by Public Affairs with exclusively civilian involvement. Military involvement is not appropriate for this grant. The civilian side of the PRTs do not have resources to support our grantees in the short or the long term.

Third, grantees have greater flexibility when they arrange their logistics independently of PRTs.

Question: What are considered the university’s strongest academic program? Does it have a political science program, something like a public health program?

Answer: It doesn’t say which university. Maybe because it’s an early question it’s Balkh. Basically I guess we’re saying ask the local contacts for additional information on programming. The universities do have web sites. You can look at their general, overall curriculum. There are contacts listed for you to ask specific questions like that.

Question: Are most students full or part time?

Answer: Students often work while they’re in school, but sometimes they’re taking [inaudible]. Many universities offer evening classes for those who work full time. It must be noted that professors often work other jobs as well. University [inaudible] are very low.

Voice: I wonder if that will have an impact on bringing professors here for training if they have to leave another job? Things like that might --

Voice: They will jump at the chance to come to the USA.

Mr. Boyum: That’s a personal and financial decision they’ll have to make. You need to craft a program that offers a good and viable training opportunity, and then it’s up to them to take you up on it.

Ms. Delage: When you talk to your contacts at the university ask them about that. Say we understand most of your professors have second jobs. Do you think they’d be willing to come here? If they’re not, propose an alternative.

Voice: I understand that one of the components of this is mentoring of their faculty by our faculty. I’d assume that the best case scenario you’d like to have that one-on-one mentoring, albeit long distance of Skype or whatever. One of our female faculty here raised the question about cultural differences in terms of the faculty being amenable to being mentored by a woman.

Ms. Blocker: That’s a good question. Ask your local university contact. The contact at Kabul University. We do a lot of programming in Afghanistan which is all women alone or all men alone or all kinds of special places for women to sit at concerts. So it’s not wrong to take that into account.

San Jose State: This is Peter. Diane, you can pipe in too. Gosh, Diane’s done lots of one-on-one and small group advisoring both in-country and via Skype and I’ve also done it, again, male towards the female faculty, and there was not an issue at all.

San Jose State: I agree, Peter. I never even felt out of place there in terms of -- You’re just mindful that what you wear is respectful of their traditions. I really didn’t feel out of place in terms of doing one-on-one with any of the male faculty at all.

Question: Does Balkh University have a good computer lab?

Answer: Through the [SILK NATO funded grant there will be at least one good computer lab in all of the universities indicated for this project. I’m working to get more details on other facilities that you might also have access to, and that’s something, again, at the university you’re interested in your local contact can clarify what else is available for you.

San Jose State: Did I just hear correctly that you said NATO was building one good computer lab at each university? This is separate from the media center?

Mr. Boyum: Yes.

San Jose State: Do you have a timeline on those?

Mr. Boyum: Pretty much up and running in a couple of places. In Kandahar, for example; Herat -- They were getting close, weren’t they?

Voice: Well, have you seen the pictures lately?

Mr. Boyum: Not the media center --

Voice: It’s not fully implemented. But we’re getting there.

Mr. Boyum: I think they’re still having trouble getting the actual broadband coming in over what facility, but the servers, for example in Kandahar the servers are there, the generators are there. We saw all that when we visited. Hopefully for this next academic year. I think that’s kind of the comment I was hearing.

Ms. Blocker: No one’s talked very much about that lately, so we’ll have to ask.

Mr. Boyum: It will be different in each university anyway.

Question: Why did the relationship with the radio station end and couldn’t be resuscitated?

Answer: We don’t currently have the details on why that relationship ended. That must be Balkh-related.

Voice: That’s Balkh, yes.

Mr. Boyum: No answer to that one right now.

Question: How many established newspapers, radio and television news stations are in there in the area, if any? Does Balkh University have partnerships or connections with local, national, international media organizations? Does the Balkh University department have any past or current students working at those organizations?

Answer: Again, please see the media directory posted on the RFP for a listing of media outlets in Afghanistan. The country has a robust media sector. See university specific overviews for details on available or current staff employment in the media sectors or existing partnerships. After you’ve done all that research, you can also query contacts in the university you’re interested in.

Ball State: What is the best way to upload lectures and presentations from this end? Would it be by DVD and sending those? Or do they have the capability to download on-line videos, et cetera, from over there?

Mr. Boyum: If it’s text and so on, [inaudible] email and normal means of access. Create a Wiki where they could log in and go to a site. But be very careful about relying on video lectures or video until you determine and try out the fact that they have sufficient bandwidth for video.

Ball State: -- doing it on DVDs and sending DVDs to them, or is that --

Mr. Boyum: Just put them on a DVD and mail them. You’ll have to figure out a good channel for getting them to them. I don’t know if you can FedEx to Balkh, you’d have to check that out. We wouldn’t be able to take them into the embassy and then deliver them for you. You’ll have to be on your own for all of that.

Ms. Delage: Check with DHL and FedEx, if they go to those cities, and the timeline. It could be two weeks via FedEx to one of those cities. You’d need to have a courier from Kabul to the other cities.

Voice: That’s what we do.

Voice: I did ISP [inaudible] on everything, on all the cities that we’re interested in to include Herat where we’re already, and that’s on a good day when the planets are all aligned, the download capability is going to be no better than 135 to 120 kilobytes, which is the low end of audio. It’s about 310 [inaudible]. It’s definitely the low end. So anybody that knows about video knows that you have to have at least 700 to 800 kilobytes in upload direction and they’re not close in any of the cities -- Khost, Mazul or Kandahar. So without the NATO project kind of in place, which it’s coming, but without that in place it’s not physically going to happen. You’re going to have dropped packets, especially on video you’ll have no packets, but you’ll have dropped packets on audio also. So you have to be cognizant of keeping it to text and low bandwidth pictures.

Ball State: Is the NATO project you’re referring to the laying of fiberoptic and the laying of broadband cable?

Voice: It’s all using existing copper.

Ball State: Is there any plan to [inaudible] the country more with broadband or with fiberoptic?

Voice: I don’t think fiberoptic unless Kabul, but everything we’ve found in Herat is going to be copper from now until I retire.

Ball State: I assume that will go out to the other provinces as well. That would be the case with the other provinces like Khost and --

Voice: Yeah. I’m guessing that’s going to be the same. Copper. That’s what they have.

Mr. Boyum: A couple of them I believe will be satellite linked because they’re not able to get the copper in.

Voice: But satellite is going to be at best, on a good day, 700 kilobytes. You’re going to have dropped packets on video even with satellite from that location. I’m a computer guy. And we’re very interested in kind of the whole audio/video kind of thing. So the satellites, because it’s there doesn’t mean you’ll be able to use it effectively.

Mr. Boyum: So bear that in mind in the distance learning component that a lot of people are interested in will have those limitations but also opportunities for the rest of it, the text-based delivery and so on. And interactive [inaudible].

Question: Another question, what percentage of students might be expected to be proficient in English?

Answer: The information on English language proficiency is included in the RFP or university-specific overviews. I think our experience can be summed up as saying it varies wildly and within the same class. You may have, at this age you may find there are students who have been born, raised and spent their whole life in Afghanistan, very low proficiency; other students fled to Pakistan and went to high school or something, in a refugee camp, in an international organization, English medium, Pakistan high school, and they come back with very good English. So there’s quite a range for the students.

Voice: But you have to have something for the non-English speakers, right? You’ve got to have some arrangement to take them into the program.

Mr. Boyum: We mentioned the Dari/Pashtu, and give some information on the web about the different parts of the country and what the dominant language is.

University of Arizona: This is Maggie from U of A. I assume everything would be in their languages. We’re not setting up English-language classes are we?

Mr. Boyum: No.

University of Arizona: Wouldn’t everything have to go over to Dari or Pashtu?

Mr. Boyum: Right. When your faculty go there, if their proficiency is sufficient for the American to teach or talk directly in English, that’s one thing. Or else you have to budget in and have a translator for that kind of work. The other thing is if and when you plan to have any staff coming to the U.S. for the faculty, the English language is a consideration. For the students, probably less, because I think San Jose -- For the students in the faulty, they will be studying in Dari or Pashtu as San Jose is translating and Omaha are translating materials, journalism materials into those languages. We foresee no student exchanges under these grants.

Question: Would you please describe the size of each institution in terms of journalism faculty and students?

Answer: Again, this is all in the university-specific overview.

Question: What are the educational qualifications of journalism faculty members?

Answer: See university-specific overviews. As we’ve seen in most universities, the majority are BA level, very few higher degrees at this point.

Question: Can you describe current facilities, newspaper, radio, television outlets?

Answer: Again, that’s in the media directory.

Question: What are the individual needs, goals and objectives of each institution?

Answer: Please see the university-specific overviews.

Question: The funding opportunity describes the inclusion of limited indirect costs within the budget. Please elaborate on specific percentages or calculations if possible.

Answer: Federally approved NICRA rates are acceptable for submission in the proposal budget.

Mr. Boyum: There’s another follow-up question to this.

Question: The NICRA is “limited”, what does that mean? Is there a limit on this RFP? If so, is there something in writing so I can get the UA to decrease its NICRA?

I take it that’s University of Arizona.

Answer: If there is a limit, they will follow it. We recommend applicants maintain NICRA rates of 25 percent maximum, although many of our [inaudible] 10 to 15 percent indirect costs. You may request a decrease depending on the cost share proposal.

Voice: If you have a NICRA rate, it is your negotiated rate. So [inaudible]. We may come back at some point and ask if you’d be willing to go to a lower rate. Try and negotiate a different rate with you for a specific project.

University of Arizona: Can I clarify that? If the NICRA rate is extremely high and we’re not going to be less competitive because we have a NICRA rate that’s been negotiated at twice somebody else’s?

Ms. Delage: You have to think about that. If your NICRA rate is 60 percent and another university’s NICRA rate is 20 percent, [inaudible].

University of Arizona: We’re at a distinct disadvantage. But you’re saying to go with whatever your NICRA rate is.

Ms. Delage: I’ve been corrected here. It’s not legal for us to put that into our decisions, so it wouldn’t affect your decision.

Mr. Boyum: You have one million, so obviously that affects what you can do with your budget. If we review proposals and come back to you we may ask one of the things for you to look at is reducing the indirect cost rate. That’s something that we both have to agree upon for that to hold. But obviously your NICRA rate is the rate that you’ve negotiated with the government.

Ms. Delage: Often there are two different NICRA rates between on-campus and off-campus.

San Jose State: Our off-campus rate is considerably less than our on-campus rate.

Voice: Is there any penalty associated if a proposal comes in and it’s heavy on the two year side with a maintenance end on the third year. You’re looking for full three year proposals here, or three years of equal activity?

Ms. Blocker: We want full three year proposals.

Voice: Full three year proposals with equal activity in each of the three years?

Mr. Boyum: That’s up to you. Once the money is obligated on this side it’s set aside for your project. How you distribute your activities amongst the three years is up to you.

San Jose State: That’s not exactly true. We discovered that in Herat. They’re looking at kind of full participation each of the three years, hint, hint, wink, wink. In the RFP it says you can go one year, you can go two years, you can go three years, but oh by the way in very bold letters we’d really like you to go three years.

Voice: -- the three year --

Ms. Blocker: Again, it’s up to you when you do your proposal, it’s not the U.S. government saying three years, this is the local partner saying three years. So talk to your local partner and see what they want.

Voice: Can I ask a question about project managers? If you’re hiring an expat with all the allowances and everything it’s very expensive and can eat up a lot of budget. I’m wondering what the models are in place now in Herat and Kabul for these similar projects. Are they doing it part-time? Are they doing an expat? What kind of allowances are they doing?

Mr. Boyum: Part time local person in Herat.

Voice: Part time Afghan?

Mr. Boyum: Yes.

I’ve got a few more questions.

Question: If there’s an implementing partner I assume they’re fully included in the proposal and in the budget.

Answer: The answer to that would be yes. That would be something budgeted for.

Question: Assuming the start date for this October 1, 2011, is that correct?

Answer: Years, roughly, though it could be earlier September, perhaps post-Ramadan.

Voice: So just to clarify, what that would mean really, if you’re bringing people here, an additional four months for a visa, realistically you couldn’t begin working here until spring of ’12 with [inaudible].

Mr. Boyum: You can begin working whenever you can and working over the net or long distance or going there. But yes, you can begin working whenever you can, and working over the net or long distance, or going there. But yes, you have to plan the four to five months lead time before any faculty could come here.

Ms. Blocker: And you probably would need to go there first because you’d need to know these people, to get the people to come.

Voice: You said that we can’t use the PRTs, that’s understandable, but is it possible either by renting of just utilizing the GMIC in Kandahar and Kabul [inaudible] well suited to those?

Mr. Boyum: GMIC is considered an independent organization so that’s up to you and your university to work with them as to how you’d want to incorporate them.

San Jose State: I have three quick questions if you still have time.

They’re kind of yes/no questions.

The first is [inaudible] has gotten back to us and said they have four PCs. Is it allowable this time around, it wasn’t last time, but this time around to purchase two or three more computers for use of the journalism faculty?

Mr. Boyum: Under this grant can a university purchase computers and install them there? Heads are nodding yes.

San Jose State: Zayed has eight professors. One has a PhD and the other seven have BAs. For the USA visits can we limit the number of professors coming to the U.S. per cycle? I’m asking ostensibly for logistics reasons, but are there any policy issues?

Mr. Boyum: Whatever works for you and your staff to accommodate.

San Jose State: You just finished going through the New Orleans English language teaching conference. And of course San Jose and I’m sure other universities sent folks there also. It was just fortuitous that in fact our person had money coming from another source to go to that conference.

Last year for the Herat project we were encouraged to put down at least one Washington, D.C. visit per year or appropriate conference. Does that same policy include an appropriate conference for our staff to go to? I’m thinking of SPJ, RTBNA, NAB conference, et cetera.

Ms. Blocker: Who put in that policy? Was it somebody at Khost? Who told you that?

San Jose State: This was back when the Herat thing was let, late May, early June.

Ms. Blocker: But who told you that?

San Jose State: I don’t have my notes right now.

Ms. Blocker: There was nobody in Washington who put down that policy so we don’t know if somebody at the embassy said that. We don’t know anything about that.

San Jose State: -- in our proposal for the entire time because it was one of those you really should think about coming this direction. So it’s been taken out, by the way, I should tell you. Richard said take the Washington, D.C. trip’s out. But we put it in originally because we were kind of told to make sure it was in. That’s where the question comes from.

Mr. Boyum: You could put things that you deem appropriate to fulfilling the purpose of the grant. A line item in your grant. And then they would be discussed and negotiated. We might review it and say we think that’s really great, but this may not be such a good idea.

San Jose State: So not different than the Herat negotiations.

Mr. Boyum: Correct.

Four more questions that have come in ahead, let’s look at them and see what time is left.

Question: In your last conference call you advised us that budgeting for a project manager who spends at least some significant time in Afghanistan is a good idea. In investigating this it has become clear that A, this is a good idea; and B, it can be very expensive. It would thus be very helpful to know what model is being employed at Kabul and Herat for similar projects that have already begun. For example, is a project manager, chief [inaudible] full time? Are they most of all or part of the year in Afghanistan? What allowances are included, i.e. housing, R&R? For sustainability purposes would it be good to have a local deputy? Do other programs employ this model? [Inaudible] cost?

Answer: I think there may be a little confusion here. A project manager probably would be an Afghan local professional or someone who can manage things for you on the ground there. You may have some lead person on your team but I don’t know that it’s feasible to have a U.S. or American project manager resident in Afghanistan. The logistics, cost, and all of that would be prohibitive or quite high.

For whoever put the question in, were you assuming this would be an American resident in Kabul when we talked about a project manager? [Inaudible] locally being an Afghan colleague.

Voice: I think you clarified it earlier U.S. [inaudible].

Local manager in Afghanistan, no housing or R&R. Harder full time in U.S.. Visits to the U.S.. You would get per diem, state rates for housing and incidental expenses if you brought your project manager to the U.S., for example.

Question: My understanding is that WSU, USAID, computer internet lab at Kandahar University also provides English-language training for faculty. Assuming this is true, what is the sustainability plan? My understanding is they’re budgeted through February 2012. I’m wondering if it can be leveraged beyond that?

Answer: Working on sustainability, expectations that will eventually be absorbed by the university fully. I note the university will be in charge of determining how English language center resources are used. Be careful of assuming you will be able to control or reserve resources, but it is a possibility. These centers are under a grant administered from Kabul Embassy to Washington State for a year to consolidate the startup that was done by USAID. I know in the case of Herat, the chancellor intends to use that center as a place where the journalism faculty can have English language courses.

So these are kind of internal decisions. Those resources exist and you may want to make a bid with your host institution to make sure they’re going to be available if you want to do English language work.

The last question was already asked. It had to do with GMIC.

Any further questions from the group now? Or comments?

University of Nebraska: This is Marilyn Lewis from the University of Nebraska at Omaha, Center for Afghanistan Studies. I’m the grant development officer over there.

We didn’t have any particular questions but I just wanted to let you know that we did participate in this call. We just would like to thank you very much for the call. These calls are always very helpful to us.

Mr. Boyum: Being mindful of the time, our hour is close approaching. Any last thoughts? Everything satisfactorily answered? There will be a transcript up on the web once we get it back from AT&T.

San Jose State: This is Peter from San Jose. One last question. While I didn’t get to go, I got to see the notes and the pictures for the Indianapolis conference. Ken, congratulations to you and all your staff for putting it on.

I’m curious, there was a lot of good dialogue and conversation that came out of that. Is there any plan afoot at your level to have another conference like that in maybe 2012 or 2013?

Mr. Holland: No, nothing has come up yet. We’re always open to ideas but there’s nothing on the table right now.

San Jose State: I’d put in a vote for it. I heard lots of good things, and I know our chancellor at Herat was very very pleased coming out of that and helped us quite a bit in our discussions with him and the staff.

Mr. Holland: Duly noted.

Mr. Boyum: Okay, folks. Thank you for your interest in this project and I look forward to hearing from you. That will have to be it for right now.

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