Spears School partnership with Kenyan university provides support to doctoral students

Friday, March 12, 2010

By Lauren Williams, Spears School Communications Intern

(March 11, 2010   Stillwater, OK) – Six Kenyan doctoral students have traveled to Oklahoma State University to receive support for their doctoral studies as part of a partnership between the Spears School of Business and Moi University in Kenya. The partnership began in March 2009 as part of OSU’s Sub-Saharan initiative when Dr. Federico Aime and Dr. Robert Dooley traveled to Eldoret, Kenya, to meet with Moi University officials and subsequently developed a proposal to help Moi University build faculty capacity to meet the growing demand for higher education in business.

A key component of the initiative is assisting Moi University doctoral students with their dissertation research.  Kenyan doctoral students Joel Tenai, Joyce Kimosop, Yusuf Kibet, Ronald Bonuke, Daniel Tarus and Kibet Bitok arrived in Stillwater in January and will stay until May. During their visit, they will attend classes, shadow professors and receive dissertation advice from Aime and Dooley, as well as Spears School faculty members David Carter, Gary Frankwick and Margaret White.  Mwarumba Mwavita, adjunct assistant professor of educational studies in the OSU College of Education, also is assisting the students with research methodology, and several faculty in the business school are allows the students to sit in on doctoral classes.

“The professors have been so good to us,” said Kimosop. “If we need any information or have any questions, they are willing to help us. It has been very good thus far.”        

In addition to doctoral student residence at OSU, the partnership between OSU and Moi University includes proposals for Ph.D. seminars by Spears School faculty at Moi University and participation in collaborative research projects. Dooley and Aime  will travel to Kenya in April to teach a research methodology class, and Spears School faculty members Gary Frankwick and Margaret White will teach a doctoral seminar in Kenya in September.

“The initial reason for developing this partnership was to help Moi University develop faculty and faculty capacity,” said Robert Dooley, Spears School associate dean for graduate programs and research. “We are very excited about the opportunities for the faculty, but we also are excited about the opportunities for us to do collaborative research in a very important region of the world. The Sub-Saharan area has research potential and is receiving more attention in the world, as well.”