California State University, Fresno, President John D. Welty will sign agreements of academic cooperation Friday with representatives from Universidad Autónoma Benito Juárez in Oaxaca, Mexico, and Sistema De Universidades Estatales de Oaxaca (State University system for the state of Oaxaca).

The agreements are for development of collaborative research projects; organizing joint academic and scientific endeavors such as courses, seminars, congresses, symposia or conferences; student, research and faculty exchanges; and sharing publications and other materials of common interest.

Representing the Sistema De Universidades Estatales de Oaxaca will be its rector (similar to president), Modesto Seara Vázquez. Signing for Universidad Autónoma Benito Juárez will be its rector, Francisco Martínez Neri.

The rectors are among a group of 13 educators and artists from Oaxaca visiting Fresno this week. The delegation also includes business, industry and city government leaders.

Vida Samiian, Fresno State’s dean of the College of Arts and Humanities, said Fresno State is proposing several projects for future collaboration and exchange in partnership with the Fresno Art Museum.

Among the proposals are scholarships for Oaxacan students to attend the CSU Summer Arts program at Fresno State; a CSU Summer Arts photography or printmaking course in Oaxaca as a travel-study course; a collaborative field-study project on endangered languages, as well as those more widely spoken in Oaxaca; and a visiting artist-in-residence from Oaxaca at Fresno State for a semester.