Drury partnering on Bahamas teaching initiative

Drury University staff and students may soon have a teaching presence in the Bahamas.

Dan Prater, executive director of The Center for Nonprofit Leadership at Drury, said he’s served since 2014 as a consultant for a foundation developing a technical school in the Bahamas that could help fight poverty in the region. It also would provide Drury students and staff opportunities to teach leadership and management skills to those attending the school.

Prater already has made a couple of trips to the islands and has at least two more planned before June. He became involved last year after talking with Rob Baird of Conco Cos., who has a property in the Bahamas and connected Prater with One Eleuthera Foundation, which is funding the effort.

In January, Prater and Charles Taylor, both professors in the Drury communications department, went to the island of Eleuthera – a narrow island east of the capital, Nassau – where buildings at a former high-end resort are being renovated for the school.

Prater said the relationship could offer Drury students and teachers training opportunities in about a year. Drury is not funding any of the plans, and the school would not be a satellite campus for the university.

“We are working with this foundation to create a center for learning,” Prater said, adding the name would be the Center for Technology and Innovation. “Drury will be involved in providing aspects which we’re good at and can help with things they need and don't have.

“We will be training on leadership, nonprofit management and matters like civic engagement and philanthropy.”

Prater said there are significant educational needs on the island, noting the unemployment rate there is around 80 percent and the high school dropout rate is roughly 75 percent.

“We didn’t create a center so faculty could go down to the Bahamas to play,” Prater said. “(The island) has a tremendous amount of issues and they’re all circular because if you don’t have a trained and educated people, companies can’t go down there and hire.”

He said nonprofits in the region need help training board members on best practices, and Drury students, particularly those in the university’s new nonprofit master’s degree program, could be well suited to teach. Also, Prater said there is much Drury students could learn.

“We want our students to be well rounded. We want them to think broader than Springfield, Mo., and that we live in a global society. One of the ways we do that is we encourage international engagement and study abroad,” Prater said, noting Drury teachers also would train remotely. “So we’re working on a program to send students down there to both learn about the culture, but also to engage in research and some type of training.

“It would be us helping them, but they’d be providing a good opportunity for our students as well.”

Prater said the details are still in development, but he plans to return to the island over spring break and after the semester ends to further explore how the university could become more involved with the Center for Technology and Innovation.