The Global Alliances in Literacy and Engagement, or GALE, offers consulting services for institutions seeking to increase their research activity. We offer strategic planning (including conducting needs assessments) training and development (e.g. seminars, workshops) and partnership-building (including partnering on grants) to help institution achieve their research goals.
The GALE Center was founded in 2023 as an extension of global partnership work begun in and through the MSU Writing Center. These collaborations have been focused on building, extending, and maintaining writing support programs or writing centers in various higher education institutions in countries such as Botswana, South Africa, Namibia, Tanzania, and Uganda.
Over the past few years, this work has grown in multiple ways including the creation of the Botswana Writing Centre Society and the establishment of writing centers at Botswana Open University, the University of Botswana, and Makerere University (with the aid of a US Embassy-Uganda program grant). The mentoring work with leaders in Uganda and Tanzania (in partnership with MSU’s Alliance for African Partnership and IREX) has led to visions of an East African exchange to establish writing centers throughout that region as well. In addition, we are partnering with the Middle East North Africa Writing Center Association to host this exchange with a pre-conference workshop day at their biennial conference in 2025.
GALE’s first partnership completely outside of the writing center is through the US Embassy in Kazakhstan where we are working with five universities across the country to establish five writing centers over the next two years and create a model for other universities in the region. Through the partnerships in Uganda and Kazakhstan we have developed, and have used already in Uganda, a Needs Assessment Survey for university and faculty administrators to express their understanding of university support for research, grants management, and publication processes, as well as individual strengths and needs in these areas. It is hoped this Needs Assessment instrument will be used in Kazakhstan in the coming months, with an additional Needs Assessment Survey in the works aimed at students and their needs.