Stephen C. Dunnett, institute director and UB vice provost for international education, said a representative of the UB ELI has just returned from Tuzla in Bosnia, where he met with Bosnian officials to determine how such a program might best be structured to meet the needs of the Bosnian people.

"After the implementation of the peace accords, Bosnia will require tremendous reconstruction of every sector of its society," said Dunnett, a prime mover in the development of American overseas education programs.

"Education is a top priority of both the Bosnian government and of the international donor agencies that serve Bosnia," he said. "They recognize that after the war ends, the nation will need a population literate in English in order to attract foreign investors, participate in joint business and educational ventures and update medical facilities," he said.

John K. Fitzer, ELI assistant director for academic support services, arrived in Tuzla on Oct. 7 along with a group of physicians from International Medical Relief of Western New York. That organization, founded and directed by Jacob Bergsland, UB assistant professor of surgery and director of heart transplantation at The Buffalo General Hospital, has for several years sponsored an exchange program between health-care personnel in Bosnia and medical staff at The Buffalo General Hospital.

The group provides Bosnian physicians with instruction in new medical procedures and has helped equip the Tuzla Medical Center with advanced technology for diagnosis and treatment.

In connection with this, the ELI developed a medical English course for the visiting Bosnian doctors and nurses and a curriculum for self-instruction in English now used at the Tuzla Medical Center that uses donated audio and video tapes and language instruction books.

The goal has been to upgrade the medical staff's English language skill so that members are able to read current medical journals, most of which are in English. Pre-civil war Yugoslavia was a communist nation, so access to important western medical journals was not a priority and the English language not widely taught.

Based on the success of this program and the ELI's experience in the field, Tuzla University and the medical relief group have now invited UB to establish a grant-funded long-term ELI program on site in Bosnia once the war ends.

The proposed classroom program would serve not only the Tuzla Medical Center staff but also Tuzla University students-initially those in the medicine, nursing and business programs.

"Many aspects of the program are still tenuous," Fitzer added, "but it calls for UB teachers to go to Bosnia once the war has ended to teach English language upgrading. The long-range plan is to bring Bosnian English teachers to the U.S. to study so that they can return home and operate the language program by themselves."

Fitzer met with a number of officials including Te Sadik Latisagic, rector of Tuzla University; the heads of most of the university's faculties; Selim Beslagic, the region's provincial governor; the mayor of Tuzla, the director of the Tuzla Medical Center and others.

UB was offered physical facilities in Bosnia in which to operate the program and has been promised accommodations for American personnel.

In the meantime, the ELI will follow a practice the institute has used successfully in such countries as Cambodia. It will host a Bosnian scholar at UB during the spring or summer, 1996 semester and will initiate a professional development program for Bosnian ESL teachers in Tuzla.

Fitzer's trip was punctuated by the Oct. 8 Serb bombing of a crowded Muslim refugee camp at Zivinice, south of the United Nations safe area at Tuzla. Zivinice's many casualties, virtually all children and women, were brought to the Tuzla Medical Center for treatment while the UB-Buffalo General team was there.

"Dying children." Fitzer said, "It isn't something I'll forget. Sights like this alter your perspective about a lot of things, including how fortunate we are in this country to be untouched by this kind of tragedy."

The Muslims in the camp had previously been pushed out of two U.N. "safe areas" in Srebrenica and Zepa when Bosnian Serbs overran those camps during the summer. All of the camp's men and boys were separated out and removed by the Serbs and their whereabouts are unknown.

"In spite of the war," Fitzer said, "the hospital staff and the wounded themselves comprise all of the segments of the Bosnian population-Catholic Croats, Muslim Bosnians and Orthodox Serbs. They work together, care for one another in the middle of madness.

"The people of Bosnia themselves expressed constant gratitude for our presence," he said.

"I have never experienced this kind of welcome. They exhibited great dignity and a strong sense of pride and hope for the future of their country. This despite the fact that they've felt abandoned for four years," Fitzer added. "Many promises have been made to them and broken, but they are very, very positive about what we are trying to do here."

The ELI, which operates at UB as well as abroad, has awarded certificates to more than 17,000 students from 101 countries since it was founded in 1971. The institute has extensive experience in the teaching of English for specific purposes, especially English for science, technology and business professionals, and has developed programs with universities and other educational institutions throughout Eastern Europe and the Pacific Rim.