WHEN RUSTY BROOKS picked up the phone at 4 p.m. one Friday afternoon, he had no idea that eight years of work in Croatia was about to be rewarded. But Brooks, a rural sociologist at the University of Georgia, is no stranger to serendipity. That’s what took him to that Balkan nation in the first place.

While on a Salzburg Fellowship in 1998, he met Tihana Fabijanic, who was developing a heritage trail along the Kupa River Valley in her native Croatia. At that time, Brooks was involved in a project to develop tourism along Georgia’s Highway 441. The pair discovered that their projects shared many of the same problems and opportunities.

So when the Fellowship ended, Brooks spent a few days in Croatia to see Fabijanic’s project first hand. He also visited the University of Zagreb — that nation’s largest and oldest university — where he met UZ’s rector (equivalent to a university president). Brooks explained how outreach work at UGA was helping to promote economic development in the state’s rural areas.

The idea that a university would do more than teach students intrigued the rector. However, like other European universities, UZ is split into autonomous faculties and lacks the funding, institutional support and legal structure to do outreach work, Brooks said. In spite of that, the rector assigned a UZ faculty member to explore how the university might help with rural development and even prepare the nation for entry into the European Union.

That was the beginning of UGA’s connection to Croatia. Since then, faculty and staff from across campus have become involved there, including representatives from higher education, agriculture, forestry, landscape design, and international public service and outreach, to name a few. In all about 50 people from each nation — including faculty, students, artists, business owners and politicians — have participated in several dozen cultural exchanges. Visits to Georgia helped participants see how UGA fosters better government, helps small businesses, improves agriculture and promotes public health, in addition to educating students.

The next phase began when Brooks’ phone rang.

“When Dad called late that Friday afternoon, he wanted to see if I could find someone to translate a letter written in Croatian,” said Carol Cotton, a professor of public health promotion at UGA and the voice on the other end of the line. “Dad is a retired physician and former Air Force Reservist and had been working on the Phillips family genealogy for a decade. He’s 100 percent Croat.”

Lawrence Phillips’ family — spelled Philipoc before an Ellis Island clerk Americanized the surname — had immigrated to the U.S. in the early 1900s as tensions were growing in the Balkans. The youngest of 10 children, he was raised in a coal mining area of Pennsylvania and now was trying to trace his mother’s transit from Zagreb to the United States.

“I knew he’d keep calling me over the weekend so as we talked I went online and put in ‘Croatia,’” Cotton said. “Rusty A Gift for Croatia Programs Carl Vinson Institute of Government Brooks’ name came up.”

Cotton called Brooks, not expecting to get anyone that late on a Friday. He talked with passion about his work in Croatia and recommended that Keith Langston in the Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages translate the letter.

Cotton made another call — now at 5:05 — to Langston, who was also in.

“Talk about the stars aligning,” Cotton said. “Forty-five minutes later, Keith faxed the translation back.”

The quick response piqued Dr. Phillips’ interest and he began to look into the work UGA was undertaking in his ancestral home. In January 2006, he and his wife, Sarah Mae, donated $500,000 to support UGA’s work in Croatia and provided additional funds for study abroad programs.

This gift will support faculty and student exchanges between UGA and UZ, and both universities’ faculty will work together to develop public health and economic development programs in Croatia and surrounding nations. While UGA has sponsored a study abroad program in Croatia since 2002, the students who participated in the 2006 Croatia Maymester program were the first to benefit from the Phillips’ generous contribution, which aims to keep the students’ costs low.

“This gift is a personal statement that my father values his heritage,” Cotton said. “Donors don’t care about publicity. They care about tangible things, their passions, their issues. They are willing to support something that’s tangible and will last.”

KATHLEEN CASON

Tags: Croatia, Study Abroad, Winter 2007