The President of YU Dr. Zeidan Kafafi discussed possible avenues of research cooperation between YU and Bard College, with the Vice President of Bard College, Dr. Rebecca Granato and the Dean of International Programs at the college Dr. Allen Hanil.

Dr. Kafafi stressed that YU welcomes all forms of scientific and research cooperation that improve educational and research processes at YU, pointing that the Refugees, Displaced Persons and Forced Migration Studies Center at YU has conducted many research projects that have had positive impact on refugees in Jordan in cooperation with various international organizations.

Dr. Kafafi further pointed to the possibility of collaborating with Bard College in a project for designing online courses and including them in the study plan to enable Jordanian students and refugees to join them.

Dr. Granato, for her part, expressed Bard College's endeavor to collaborate with YU in view of the distinguished reputation it enjoys at the international level. She pointed that the project they intend to launch with YU in 2019 includes designing a multidisciplinary online course that covers issues of human rights from historical and literary perspectives. Dr. Granato added that the course will include 10 students from YU, 20 refugees from Irbid City, and 15 students from Al-Quds Bard College in Palestine (AQB), and that professors from both AQB and YU will cooperate in teaching it. The program, as Dr. Granato stressed, is designed for the refugees and students to exchange ideas and to work together toward goals that concern them in the field of higher education.

The meeting was attended by Vice Presidents Prof. Anis Khassawneh, Prof. Ahmad Al-Ajlouni, and the director of the Department of International Relations and Projects, Dr. Mwaffaq Otoom.

On behalf of HRH Princess Sumaya bint El Hassan, President of the Royal Scientific Society, Prof. Zeidan Kafafi inaugurated Adumantu Journal III conference under the title "Water through the Ages in the Arab World in Light of Archaeological Discoveries" which was organized by AbdulRahman Al-Sudairy Cultural Center in Saudi Arabia. The conference took place in "Jordan Museum" on Oct. 10th and included the presentation of 34 papers.

During the opening ceremony, Kafafi delivered a speech and stated that the oldest human remains in our Arab world go back to more than a million years during which man left cultural and civilizational prints that emphasize the civilized dimension, and pointed out that the Arab world witnessed the beginning of writing and alphabets, the establishment of cities and states, trade, emergence of religions, and the appearance of apostles and prophets. Kafafi added that the conference deals with an important topic; the available water resources in the Arab world in light of archaeological discoveries and the most important world civilizations emerged on the banks of rivers such as the Mesopotamia, Nile, Sindh and King. He finally thanked the officials in AbdulRahman Al-Sudairy Cultural Center for choosing Jordan as the venue for this conference, as well as the scientists in and out of the Arab world.

The President of the Conference, Chairman of the editorial board of Adumantu Journal Dr. Khalil bin Ibrahim Al-Maaqil said that this conference aimed at highlighting the aquatic techniques used by humans throughout ages through archaeological research and identifying the environmental influences that contributed to affect the water resources  through showing examples from archaeological sites, and providing an opportunity to meet with specialists in archaeological and environmental studies, and offering future research depictions. He focused on the universality of the conference since it holds scientists and experts in archaeological studies representing Arab and international universities and institutions in addition to experts from Jordanian and Saudi universities.

The Director of AbdulRahman Al-Sudairy Cultural Center, Hussein bin Ali Al-Khalifa, stated that this scientific forum is in line with the center's objectives, which call for supporting the scientific and cultural movement in addition to research and scientific studies.

The Vice President for Student Affairs and External Relations, Prof. Fawwaz Al-Abed Al-Haq sponsored the closing ceremony of the global competition "Hult Prize", the biggest student competition in the world for pioneering social entrepreneurs.

Abed Al-Haq praised the students for participating in extracurricular activities, international projects and prizes that aim at creating constructive ideas needed to solve the problems that societies face, pointing that YU has keen interest in supporting students’ creative ideas.

Dr. Abed Al-Haq referred to several success stories for people who, through strong will and good planning, have become independent and entrepreneurial personalities worldwide, and he encouraged students to be innovative to better serve their country, university and themselves.

For her part, the Dean of the Student affairs, Dr. Amal Nusir, pointed that YU students’ participation in Hult Prize is a source of pride. She added that this participation shows a good example of YU students’ capabilities to deal with challenging social problems, such as poverty and unemployment, and solving them.

The dean further stated that the Deanship of Student Affairs pay particular attention to extracurricular activities and various competitions, particularly the ones that aim at solving social problems. She added that such activities have positive impact on the students as they gain self-confidence to change for the better.

Mr. Ayman Arindi, the manager of the Hult Prize in Jordan expressed his thanks and appreciation to YU for encouraging their students to participate in the prize and for supporting their ideas to serve the community. Mr. Arindi also gave an introduction about the prize and the method of application for it.

At the end of the ceremony, the names of the teams, that won the best projects to solve the problem of unemployment, were announced. The team of Fares Al-Shamali, Malak Al-Shamali, Sahira Al-Omari, and Mohammed Al-Qazaqzeh came first place. The team of Leen Al-Zoubi, Mahmoud Salam, Suha Al-Tahat and Raghad Hawari came second, and the team of Ahmad Al-Smadi, Ahmed Balawneh, Mohammed Al-Zwairi came third. The three winning teams from YU will compete locally and then globally in the following stage of the prize to win $1 million.

The ceremony was attended by a number of university officials in addition to officials from the award program and a number of university students.

It is worth noting that Hult Prize is a partnership between Hult International Business School and the United Nations Foundation. The Prize is an annual, year-long competition that crowd-sources ideas from college students after challenging them to solve pressing social issues.

 Student Sarah Ghraize from the Faculty of Pharmacy manages the prize at YU.

The vice president of Yarmouk University for Student Affairs and External communication, Prof. Fawwaz Al-Abed Al-Haq, met a delegation from the University of Manchester which included the vice president of the University for International relations Prof. Stephen Flint and the Coordinator of Research strategies and international cooperation at the University Dr. Shaden Jaradat. Means and ways of enhancing cooperation were discussed between the two sides.

During the meeting, Al-Haq stressed the keenness of Yarmouk University to enhance cooperation and communication with international universities and to send students via scholarships to these universities to pursue their postgraduate studies to qualify them according to the latest scientific and teaching methods which reflects positively on their academic performance after rejoining Yarmouk University. He also expressed the willingness of the University to enhance cooperation with the British University of Manchester in conducting joint scientific research, staff and students exchange, and receiving students from Manchester to learn Arabic in the language center within the Arabic language program for Speakers of other languages, in addition to the possibility of conducting joint international projects in the issues of refugees and displaced persons.

In turn, Flint and Jaradat praised the outstanding scientific reputation of Yarmouk University and its level of  development and modernization, confirming the readiness of the University of Manchester to strengthen cooperation with Yarmouk University through a memorandum of understanding, especially in the fields of scientific research and student exchange in various PhD programs.