Sheila Marie Aird is the director of European International Programs. She oversees the dual-degree programs offered at four of SUNY Empire’s international locations: Prague, Czech Republic, where she is based full time, Athens and Thessaloniki, in Greece, and Tirana, Albania.

Students enrolled in the college’s dual-degree programs receive the first two years of programming from one of SUNY Empire’s international partner universities. Their credits are then transferred to SUNY Empire, where their degree is completed over the following two years. Upon completion, the student receives two degrees, a bachelor’s from SUNY Empire and a Czech Republic bachelor’s from the partner university. Dual-degree programs have been offered by the college for more than 20 years.

“Students in Europe know that SUNY Empire State College is a well-known university worldwide and that we have a large alumni base,” Aird says. “They have great respect and admiration for the value of an American bachelor’s degree and they are very excited about that. They’re getting the same degree in Europe as they would if they attended in the U.S., so for them, it’s a win-win situation.”

Aird, who has been with SUNY Empire since 2007, says the opportunity to create individualized degree programs for students – and to do so with them as part of the process – is what sets SUNY Empire apart, not only for students but for faculty as well.

“I love being able to sit down with a student and design their degree plan in a way that makes sense to them. That has always interested me,” she says. “Students are deciding how they want to be educated, when they want to be educated, and they’re kind of driving the vehicle. So we’ve got to also step back and rethink how we do what we do, so that we can stay current, not only in our field, but in how we deliver education to students.”

Prior to her current role at the college, Aird was associate professor and academic coordinator for Global Studies and was actively engaged with teaching, mentoring, developing courses and continuously creating new strategies for student engagement.

She received her Ph.D. in Latin and Caribbean History and second M.A. in History from Howard University. During her final year of research for the Ph.D., which focused on the experiences of enslaved children in the British Caribbean, she was awarded the prestigious Sasakawa Fellowship from the Nipon Foundation in Japan.

Learn more about international programs offered by SUNY Empire here.