For several years, the Dartmouth Global Health Initiative, a unit within Dartmouth University’s medical school that promotes global health research, has had a close working relationship with Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Among other things, both universities work together to provide treatment options for children who are HIV positive. Each year, several Dartmouth medical students travel to Tanzania to do field work. And many students from Muhimbili have come to Dartmouth to pursue graduate degrees in public health. Both universities also have worked closely on the development of a vaccine that reduces the chances of HIV infection.

Indiana University and the University of Massachusetts Medical School recently teamed up to address the shortage of health care workers in the impoverished West African nation of Liberia, which is still reeling from the aftermath of two civil wars that lasted 11 years and killed tens of thousands of people. The two universities are collaborating with the University of Liberia to produce badly needed graduates in fields such as nursing, biotechnology, public health and medicine.

Faculty members at the University of Texas at Arlington are working with Fourah Bay University in Sierra Leone, another West African country that was turned upside down by a lengthy civil war, to develop that nation’s first degree-grant social work program.

From student and faculty exchanges to joint research projects, U.S. universities maintain a broad spectrum of collaborative relationships with African universities.

It’s unclear how many U.S. colleges and universities have partnerships with African universities. The African Studies Association, an organization of scholars, doesn’t keep that kind of data. But anecdotal evidence suggests that more colleges and universities are reaching out to counterparts in Africa.

Some of the interest stems from a desire to force students out of their comfort zones, says Dr. Randolph Quaye, director of Ohio Wesleyan University’s Black World Studies program.