University President Mary Sue Coleman plans to spend two weeks in Africa in February 2008.

While there, she will visit universities to encourage collaboration between University faculty and researchers and their African counterparts, she said. Coleman also said she plans to use the trip to encourage students to study in Africa, she said.

The trip will be Coleman's first major official international visit since June 2005, when she spent a week in China. While visiting four colleges in Beijing and Shanghai, she announced the creation of academic and research partnerships between the University of Michigan and four Chinese colleges.

The most prominent accomplishment of Coleman's trip to China was the creation of a joint degree-granting program between the University of Michigan and Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Engineering students can now earn a joint degree from both universities in the time it takes to earn a single degree by spending some time living and studying on each campus.

Shanghai Jiao Tong gave Coleman an honorary degree during her visit, which she displays prominently on a shelf in her office in the Fleming Administration Building.

In recent years, American higher education officials have begun traveling abroad to court the leaders of prominent foreign universities and try to set up research partnerships.

Special Counsel to the President Gary Krenz said Coleman's trips to China and Africa are attempts to make the University of Michigan a "global university."

The Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, a prestigious university in Mumbai, India, has welcomed dozens of visitors from American colleges in recent years, the Chronicle of Higher Education reported last month. But few of the visitors have actually created joint programs, Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, the director of the institute, told the Chronicle.

"Little happens beyond the first step," Bhattacharya said.

The University plans to fund the trip to Africa with money from the general fund but could receive funding from an external source, Krenz said. The University's Alumni Association paid for part of Coleman's trip to China.

Krenz said the time and money spent on the trip are worthwhile because of the partnerships it builds between researchers and faculty at home and abroad.

Although the details of Coleman's trip to Africa have not yet been planned, the collaborative research being done there by University of Michigan faculty is centered on public health issues and social sciences - meaning Coleman's trip to Africa will likely yield different types of partnerships than the ones created in China two years ago.

"This will be, I think, a very good opportunity to highlight the work that we have going on," she said. "I'm really looking forward to it - I've never been to Africa."

Krenz is chairing a committee to schedule Coleman's visit. Although her itinerary is still being developed, Ghana as well as the South African cities of Cape Town and Pretoria are likely destinations, Coleman said.

Coleman chose South Africa from a list provided by the committee, which was asked to choose countries where many faculty members conduct collaborative research. The list also included Brazil, India, Poland and Singapore.

The trip was expanded to also include Ghana because South Africa is prosperous and doesn't face many of the poverty and public health problems that afflict sub-Saharan Africa, said Public Health Prof. Rachel Snow, who is compiling a list of all faculty research being conducted in Africa.

Coleman and the committee will review the list and use the trip to showcase "highly engaged" public health and social science research, Krenz said.

When asked for an example of the type of research in Africa that Coleman hopes to encourage, Krenz cited a partnership between the University's Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, the University of Ghana and the Ghanaian government to train post-graduate obstetrics students in Ghana, which faces a shortage of doctors.

To date, the program has trained 37 post-graduate obstetricians. Thirty-six still practice in Ghana. The one who stopped practicing became Ghana's minister of health.

Krenz said Coleman's trip to South Africa, a country trying to overcome its history of racial segregation and discrimination, will also serve as an study in "comparative diversity" for Coleman, who has repeatedly affirmed the University's dedication to diversity.

"We see in Africa - particularly in South Africa - a country that is wrestling with issues of diversity in its education and higher education systems, but in a very different way," he said.