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His Excellency James Lambert, Ambassador of Canada to the Netherlands, concluded his 10-day outreach in Canada on November 25 2014, with a visit to McMaster. The Global Health Office was pleased to welcome him as he met with faculty and students involved in the MSc in Global Health program. Ambassador Lambert has already established relationships with Global Health faculty at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, our partner in this collaborative program.

 

 

With the closure of CIDA and the introduction of the Canada European Economic Trade Agreement (CETA), the governments of Canada and the Netherlands are focused on innovative partnerships. And, as Ambassador Lambert pointed out, “Academic relations are important drivers for relationships.”

 

The Global Health program is a key example of an innovative partnership in higher education between two universities that dates back to the 1970s. At that time, McMaster had created problem-based learning (PBL) and Maastricht wholeheartedly adopted the approach.

 

Today, we are united again in what Ambassador Lambert calls a “leading edge” program. He referred to his visit as a “strategic moment” to highlight the success of the partnership – a small relationship, but nonetheless a “big story” in the context of bilateral Canadian-Dutch relations.

 

 

Ambassador Lambert met with Dr. Andrea Baumann, Director of Global Health; Dr. Christy Gombay, Academic Coordinator; Dr. Luis Barreto, Advisory Board member; and students and alumni from the program. President Patrick Deane, along with Dr. John Kelton, Dean and Vice President of the Faculty of Health Sciences, and Dr. Peter Mascher, Associate Vice-President of International Affairs, also met with Ambassador Lambert to discuss the internationalization of higher education at McMaster. Faculty from engineering, Dean Puri and Department Chair, Dr. Carlos Filipe also met with His Excellency.