In the meeting which was held on February 12^th, 2018 in the TUMS Headquarters, Dr. Abbasali Karimi, the TUMS chancellor, , Dr. Michael Josef Kowolik, the Associate Dean for Global Engagement, the Executive Dean of the Dental School of Indian University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) who is also a TUMS Visiting Professor, Dr. Nekoofar, the TUMS director of International Relations, Accreditation and Ranking, Dr. Khami, the Consultant to the TUMS Vice-chancellor for Global Strategies and International Affairs, Dr. Rokn the Head of the TUMS School of Dentistry and Dr. Amini Shakib the Vice-dean for International Affairs of TUMS School of Dentistry were present.

In the beginning, Professor Kowolik gave a brief introduction of IUPUI Dental School and the Department of Oral Health. Noting that this has been his third visit to TUMS, Prof. Kowolik stated that more and more potentials to collaborate have been discovered during his visits.

Professor Kowolik counted study abroad programs of IUPUI, joint PhD in the field of Public Health and giving advices on TUMS Dental Program accreditation as the major grounds of collaboration between IUPUI and TUMS. Explaining the faculty structure of IU, he mentioned that IUPUI is recruiting private dental practitioners to work from a couple of days per week to a couple of days per month in the dental school to give opportunities to the full time faculties to do research.  Dr. Kowolik also proposed a collaborative triangle including IU, TUMS and another university as one of the existing strong potentials for collaboration.

Dr. Nekoofar also pointed to the accreditation of TUMS Dental Programs as one of the major TUMS interests for collaboration. In addition, he generously offered accommodation for three IU students and two IU faculty members to use the student and staff exchange as an influential bridge between the two universities.

Supporting the suggested collaborations, TUMS chancellor expressed that the image represented from Iran by the International Medias are not based on the truth of Iran and he believed that such academic collaborations will depict the true image of Iran to the world.

At the end of the meeting, the renewed Visiting Professorship Certificate of Professor Kowolik was offered to him by the TUMS chancellor.

Reported By: M. Davoodifar