$1 million US grant for Qatar University

The Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) of the US State Department has warded Qatar University a grant to develop its mass communication program, The Peninsula reported. The four new grants totaling $1,160,000 will help form partnerships between colleges and universities in the US and the Middle East. The University of Louisiana at Lafayette will seek to augment the mass communications program at Qatar University through instituting a curriculum review, new course offerings, a student newspaper, the integration of new communication technology into the classroom and a student and faculty exchange and internship program. The U.S State Department said that the universities will contribute an additional $457,162 to the partnerships, which will be implemented in cooperation with the Higher Education for Development (HED) and the US Agency for International Development (USAID). It worth mentioning that USAID, the principal provider of US foreign assistance, is an independent federal government agency that receives overall foreign policy guidance from the secretary of the State Department.