The Atlantic Corridor Program

  The Atlantic Corridor Program was recently awarded $1,000,000 in funding by the U.S. Congress. It is hoped that matching funding will be raised from European sources in the near future.

 The Program envisions the establishment of a powerful bridge across the North Atlantic between western New York State-Southern Ontario and Midlands Ireland-Northern Ireland.
 Education will form a major aspect of the Program but it is expected that in close association with this cultural exchange there will be significant economic benefits.
 Contacts and resources available to individuals and organisations at both ends of the Atlantic Corridor will be much enhanced. This enhancement should encourage the further opening up of economic interchange between two powerful markets, the North American Free Trade Area (N.A.F.T.A.) and the rapidly expanding European Union.

 Opportunities will arise to belong to a network of powerful nodes spanning the globe and fusing educational resources with economic advancement.
 Learning should more readily be focussed on future needs, new job and career possibilities should be created, fresh avenues for high-yield investment should be opened up.

 The exchange between persons on study abroad programs, and their interaction with local individuals and organisations at home and abroad, will contribute to a significant lessening of those knowledge based, cost based, and fear based, obstacles to trans-national economic activity.

 The Atlantic Corridor Program will contribute to :-

  • A building up of human resources, skills, and confidence.
  • The emergence and growth of fast-track small and medium sized enterprises.
  • The expansion in scale and scope of support services located at each end of the corridor.
  • The synergies arising from the establishment of fuller international contacts and awareness.
 Education, together with the build up in skills and skill based business activity, will allow those communities participating enhanced opportunities to leap-frog the quality and extent of their economic base beyond what it could well become without the Alantic Corridor Program.

 As few a one American Undergraduate in a hundred and fifty participated in study abroad programmes in 1998. Less than one American student in twelve completes their formal education with a worthwhile grasp of a foreign language. Less than one U.S. citizen in ten holds a current passport.
 The Atlantic Corridor Program hopes to contribute towards the goal of increasing the number of undergraduates participating in study abroad programs twenty- fold. A five fold increase in foreign language skills is also hoped for.

 Students from Buffalo's Daemen College are already involved in study abroad programs at Quest. Niagara University students seem likely to participate fully also in the near future. It is hoped that students from Trocaire, Buffalo State College, and the University of Buffalo will also participate eventually.

 In Ireland the Atlantic Corridor Program is led by Quest Campus and actively involves Athlone Institute of Technology, the University of Ulster, University College Cork, and LSB College in Dublin. It is hoped that all colleges on the island of Ireland will become involved eventually.

 Some possibilities for study time being spent on the continent of Europe also exists, a base for such study has been agreed with the Irish College at Louvain near Brussels. Some Daemen College students involved in Quest linked courses of studies spent time there in April of 1999 becoming informed about aspects of European Union formation.