CAMPUS ACTIVITIES

The Turathuna Center
Turathuna, the Center for Palestinian Heritage and Culture of Bethlehem University Library is now nearing completion. Funded by Ireland Aid, the Center is frequented by students doing research on Palestinian topics. The Center also opens its rich and varied resources to the general community and provides facilities for new technology to access information on Palestine and related topics. Ms. Maha Saca of Bethlehem donated $5,000 for Palestiniana books in honor of her recently deceased father, Jiryes Abu Rumman, the founder of the Arab Literary Society in Beit Jala. She will also donate some books from her late father's private collection. Ms. Saca who runs a Heritage Center in Bethlehem donated several items for exhibition in Turathuna and has volunteered her time and expertise to assist the Center's development.

Office Of Personnel Management On The Move
Since it was set up in September 1999, the Office of Personnel Management had planned to give special attention to staff development and training being a vital personnel function. Providentially this was made possible through a generous donation thus enabling the Office to establish and administer the "Kaizan Fund" (Kaizan means "continuous improvement" in Japanese). Since then 150 staff members benefited from the Kaizan Fund. The professional development and training included courses, workshops, and lectures attended by individual staff members or groups of them. The latest three activities included: a five-session course on "Effective Supervision" for supervisors and another five-session course on "Quality Office Service" for administrative assistants and secretaries. Both courses were given by Usama Shahwan, PhD from the Faculty of Business Administration. Br. Kenneth Cardwell, FSC, Professor from the Department of English led a workshop on "Grant Proposal Writing", which twenty faculty and staff members attended.