By Krista Torralva STAFF WRITER
The University of Texas at San Antonio hosted delegates from a German university Monday as the two institutions worked to develop a partnership born out of San Antonio’s sister city program.
Technical University Darmstadt is one of about 110 international universities UTSA partners with. The arrangement came after the mayors of both cities signed a sister city agreement in 2017, though the universities had been discussing it as early as 2015, the presidents of both schools said.
UTSA is poised to parlay its work with TU-Darmstadt to boost student exchange programs and joint faculty research funded by “various outfits around the globe,” such as the National Science Foundation and organization in Germany and elsewhere in Europe, UTSA President Taylor Eighmy said.
UTSA and TU-Darmstadt officials split up into panels to explore future cooperation in cybersecurity, data sciences, political science, international affairs, engineering and other fields.
“We’re plotting and strategizing how we could do this,” Eighmy said. “Our world of discovery isn’t constrained by borders or by geopolitics. The nature of solving the big, grand challenges we all face really involves collaboration ... between institutions.”
TU-Darmstadt, at 141 years old, is about three times the age of UTSA. It has international partnerships with other universities that have lasted three or four decades. The collaboration elevates the research universities conduct and provides expansive opportunities for students to study abroad, TU-Darmstadt President Hans Jürgen Prömel.
“It’s very important to go to another country to see another culture, to bring people together,” Prömel said.
One TU-Darmstadt student studied at UTSA last fall and the institution plans to send three next fall, said Lisa Montoya, UTSA Vice Provost for Global Initiatives and Senior International Officers. Two UTSA students are planning to study abroad at TU-Darmstadt next fall, she said.
TU-Darmstadt is one of about a dozen technical universities in Europe, a status comparable to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and California Institute of Technology, Eighmy said. Darmstadt, just outside the city of Frankfurt, is recognized for its innovation in science and space research. krista.torralva@express-news.net