On September 27^th, Prof. Rami Hamdallah, President of An-Najah University, received in his office at the Old Campus a high American delegation from city of Gainesville, State of Florida in the US. The Delegation was headed by Gainesville’s Mayor, and consisted of professors, artists and musicians from Florida State University. The delegation was also accompanied by Dr. Ma’rouf Zahran, Undersecretary of the Palestinian Ministry of Civil Affairs, and Mr. Sameer Dawabsheh, Mayor of Qalqilya.

Attendees included: Prof. Maher Abu Eid, Vice President for Academic Affairs at An-Najah, President Assistant for Strategic and International Affairs, and Dr. Sam Alfoqahaa, Director of the Public Relations Department at the University.

In the meeting, Prof. Hamdallah welcomed the Mayor and his delegation to An-Najah and presented a summary about the University and its different academic programs. He also welcomed the cooperation between An-Najah and Florida State University. Furthermore, he familiarized the guests with the ranks and status that An-Najah has achieved lately by the Webometrics (Ranking Web of World Universities) which ranked it first in Palestine, seventh in the Arab world and among the first 5% universities from among 20,000 universities that the evaluation included.

Moreover, Prof. Hamdallah spoke about the student admission mechanism to meet the needs of the local and regional community and achieve the best outputs of the educational process.

Gainesville’s Mayor expressed his admiration by the level of development that An-Najah has achieved over the last years and the pioneering role it plays to serve the Palestinian society. He also emphasized the interest of Florida University to take the relationships with An-Najah further towards more cooperation in the different academic fields.

The delegation also visited the New Campus where they were introduced to the Faculty of Fine Arts and the different departments there which the guests described as impressive and astonishing.