SMU collaborating to bring special education to Palestine

Brother Robert Smith, Dr. Jane Anderson and Rebecca Hopkins participated in the first national conference on special education.

On Aug. 5, Rebecca Hopkins, dean of the Graduate School of Education, and Dr. Jane Anderson dean of the School of Education, traveled to Ramallah, Palestine to participate in seminar work sessions and the first ever national conference on special education.

The project director, Dr. Sami Basha, Department of Education faculty member at Bethlehem University, invited Saint Mary’s to collaborate on this ground breaking initiative of developing the first teacher preparation program in special education in Palestine.

Prior to this visit, curriculum and program structure of our newly launched M.A. in Special Education was shared with Dr. Basha and his team. The basic structure of this master’s degree has now been developed, and continued work on curriculum writing and assessment planning will be next. Brother Robert Smith, vice president of Academic Affairs at Bethlehem University, was also present at the conference in Ramallah to support this initiative and the collaboration between the two universities.

For more information, go to www.bethlehem.edu/index.php.