Safunsa anady a phula, a phrase meaning he who doesnt ask eats the wax is commonly used in Malawi to encourage curiosity and openness. William Davis, Director of the United Nations Information Office, learned what this meant in a series of faculty presentations Wednesday.

The amount of work that is being done here at Michigan Satethe breadth, the intelligence, the insightIm thrilled to have learned more about it, Davis said.

Highlighting their work in relation to the eight Millennium Development Goals set up by the UN to improve the quality of life around the world, representatives from five university-related projects spoke with Davis in a meeting from 2-4 p.m. in the Kellogg Center.

Comparative Culture and Politics junior Courtney Hurtt presented MSUs work at an community center in South Africa through the on-campus student organization MRULE. The African-run safe house not only offers a home to impoverished children, but encourages gender empowerment through education and modeling, some of which is done by MSU student interns.

In partnership with VVOCF and the Clinton Global Initiative, this project highlights the goal to Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger. Assistant Director of the Global Institute for Higher Education Gretchen Sanford presented a USAID-funded teacher education program in Pakistan. This five-year project seeks to provide a sustainable curriculum based on professional standards and infrastructure. There are currently 105 Pakistani educators enrolled in the program, which furthers the goal to Achieve Universal Primary Education. Other projects addressed included MSU professor of internal medicine Terrie Taylors work in Malawi researching childhood cerebral malaria and the expansion of research a new MRI has afforded and various ways MSU is involved in fighting climate change through controlling carbon emissions.

Representatives discussed finding ways to link together the goals of their various projects, recognizing the merits of collaboration and admitting that no problem can be solved through the knowledge of one discipline alone.

Sanford offered ideas of how this kind of cooperation could be achieved. You should be able to call someone up and say this is where I want to work, connect me with everyone else on campus doing related things so I can do this work with a partner, Sanford said.