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Universite Laval’s Richard Poulin, left, and Monique Genereux, right, with UNMC’s Cindy Mitchell. Poulin and Genereux were in Omaha last week exploring possible partnerships between UNMC and Laval. |
Laval Assistant Vice Rector Richard Poulin and Monique Genereux, a senior official of development and international relations, spent last Tuesday morning speaking with UNMC officials including Ward Chambers, M.D., interim coordinator of programs in international health and medical education, David Crouse, Ph.D., associate vice chancellor for academic affairs, and Simon Sherman, Ph.D., director of bioinformatics shared resources at UNMC.
An exchange program with UNMC involving students and visiting professors is among the collaboration options Laval is exploring, Poulin said.
“We are in the very preliminary stages of exploring possible partnerships with UNMC,” Poulin said. “But there seem to be similarities between our universities and between Omaha and Quebec City that make such cooperation attractive.”
Laval also has many characteristics that make forming a partnership a sensible move for UNMC, Dr. Chambers said.
“Laval is one of Canada’s leading research centers,” he said. “Language and proximity make Laval an ideal choice for both student exchange programs and medical research projects.”
Laval has ongoing partnership with the University of Nebraska at Omaha that involves an exchange of French-speaking Laval students coming to UNO for intensive English classes and English-speaking UNO students going to Laval for intensive French classes.
Laval has a medical school and its students frequently express a desire to study in the United States. Collaboration with UNMC is a possible way Laval could accommodate such students, Poulin said.
Poulin and Genereux explored some of the UNMC areas of research and study that Laval may be interested in focusing on in a partnership. This included a tour of Dr. Sherman’s laboratory and a look at the Pancreatic Cancer Collaborative Registry (PCCR), which Dr. Sherman designed.
The registry is set to facilitate the uniform collection of critical information and biological samples to develop prevention and treatment strategies against pancreatic cancer. Some of the centers involved with the registry include UNMC, Creighton University, New York Medical College, Johns Hopkins Hospital and Mayo Clinic.
Genereux said the visit to UNMC was very informative and that medical center officials were very welcoming and open about what they had to offer.
“Openness is a very good sign when you are talking about setting up partnerships between universities,” she said.