US Consul General in Almaty visited AlmaU and gave a guest lecture

US Consul General in Almaty – Ms. Caroline Savage* and Consulate team: Assistant Public Affairs Officer Chad Kinnear, Education Coordinator Zhanna Toktarova, Information Assistant Aigul Kassymova visited AlmaU in the end of February 2022. Almaty Management University represented by Rector Gulnara Kurenkeyeva, Vice Rector Aigerim Kaumenova, Director of International Office Assel Nurgazina and Head of International development unit- Darya Nelidova, led a discussion on cooperation opportunities with the US Diplomatic Mission in Kazakhstan.

US Consul General gave a guest lecture to students from the School of Politics and Law majoring in international relations and regional studies. The topic discussed highlighted the Black History Month which is observed in February in the United States. AlmaU students got a chance to ask questions and express their ideas.

Cooperation between AlmaU and the United States:

University is a signatory member of UN PRME (United Nations Principles for Responsible Management Education) since 2009. AlmaU published 5 SIP (Sharing information on progress) reports on best AlmaU practices and initiated a EurAsian PRME Chapter in 2021. President of the University, Dr Assylbek Kozhakhmetov is the board member of the UN PRME.

In 2021 AlmaU joint the CINTANA Education Alliance – a global network and became a strategic long-term partner of Arizona State University. Students have an opportunity to receive a Double Degree from ASU and AmaU itself became “Powered by Arizona State University” by having access to the full course repositorium. Partnership also includes faculty and staff exchanges, English language program and other areas.

University’s staff, faculty and students are made up of Fulbright Scholars, FLEX (Future Leaders Exchange) alumni, IVLP alumni and other programs, sponsored by the US Department of State.

Since 2019 AlmaU participated in a joint project with Lehigh University on smart city, sustainability, and air quality in Almaty within the UniCEN grants program. The Central Asia University Partnerships Program (UniCEN) is a platform aimed at increasing sustainable collaborations between US and Central Asian universities.

AlmaU’s faculty actively participate in the Bolashaq program. In 2013 17 top managers, faculty and staff had an internship at the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business. Since 2020 7 faculty of AlmaU received the scholarship and are undergoing an internship at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

AlmaU is a member of Babson Collaborative. Main events within the partnership framework include joint webinars, student participation in Babson College: Global Student Challenge; students’ majoring in entrepreneurship internships, participation in the Babson Global Summit.

*US Consul General’s Biography: A career Foreign Service Officer with the U.S. Department of State since 2004, Caroline Savage assumed the position of U.S. Consul General in Almaty, Kazakhstan, in August 2021.

Previously, during the run-up to the 2020 U.S. presidential elections, Ms. Savage served in the Bureau of Global Public Affairs as Director of the Foreign Press Centers, whose mission is to deepen global understanding of U.S. policy and American values through engagement with foreign media, including 2,200 U.S.-based journalists.

From 2019 to 2021, Ms. Savage was a non-resident fellow at Georgetown University’s Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, where her focus was diverse diplomatic leadership, a project she began during her tenure as the Virginia and Dean Rusk Fellow at Georgetown from 2018 to 2019.  During her Rusk Fellowship, Ms. Savage taught courses on Diplomatic and Military Statecraft and U.S.-Russia Relations to undergraduate and graduate students. More information on the official website of the US Diplomatic Mission in Kazakhstan: https://kz.usembassy.gov/embassy-consulates/almaty/consul-general/