The visit was part of the Iraq University Linkages Program between MSU and the University of Duhok — a program through IREX, an international nonprofit organization that promotes programs for positive, lasting global change.

The program is meant to help professors at the University of Duhok in Iraq develop a more updated curriculum, and the university will work with Lyman Briggs College, the College of Engineering and the College of Arts and Letters, program manager Karin Dillon said. MSU faculty also will travel to the Middle East throughout the process.

“We submitted a proposal, and the University of Duhok looked at it and decided they would select MSU to do the project,” she said. “The idea is to improve the education of the students at the university, so they’ll have a better chance of job placement after graduation.”

Kelly Millenbah, associate dean of Lyman Briggs College and an investigator on the project, said MSU received a $1 million grant in January from IREX to take care of any expenses throughout the two-year curriculum collaboration process.

“I think this goes right to the spirit and tradition of MSU, which is about teaching research outreach and engagement,” she said. “We have such a strong reputation in internationalizing what we do, and we thought it was a great opportunity to partner with another university where we can benefit and gain from that collaborative interchange.”

The money from the grant will be used toward various expenses, including transporting professors back and forth between Iraq and the U.S., and she hopes the relationships developed in the next two years will last long after the project ends, Millenbah said.

Dillon said the College of Engineering is looking at ways to link students from Iraq and MSU together, and some doctoral students might be brought to campus. She said there also has been talk of connecting students through social media.

Although some critics of the collaboration might have safety concerns, as Iraq has a reputation for being unsafe, that is not the case for the city in which the University of Duhok is located in the Kurdistan region, Dillon said.

“It is different from Baghdad, (Iraq),” she said. “There isn’t as much of a safety risk for MSU professors traveling there. They can fly to Turkey or Europe to get there.”

Although animal science sophomore Katie Peabody had not heard anything about the program, she said the collaboration is an interesting idea for MSU.

“I really like (the curriculum) in (Lyman) Briggs, and I think that another university (and other) students would really enjoy something similar,” she said.

Staff writer Stephen Brooks contributed to this report.