The University will be closed tomorrow, Friday, February 20th 2015, due to the expected extreme weather conditions, as roads may be blocked or icy.   All exams and classes are cancelled tomorrow.…

  University news and updates at a glance

  University news and updates at a glance

Do you work in customer services? If you do, it is better to express your positive interpersonal  feelings naturally. Suppressing the benevolent interpersonal emotions of employees for customers has a negative impact on customer satisfaction, as indicated for the first time in a new study conducted by Prof. Dana Yagil of the Department of Human Services at the University of Haifa. The study was published in the journal Motivation and Emotion. “Suppression of positive interpersonal emotions is contrary to natural behavior in social interactions,” said the researcher.

University news and updates at a glance

As part of the first cooperative venture of its kind between the University of Haifa and the Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research Institute, a festive cornerstone laying ceremony was held launching the construction of the deep sea research labs for the Harry and Leona Helmsley Mediterranean Sea Research Center at the University of Haifa. “This is a historic partnership that will substantially advance sea research in Israel. We are proud of this cooperation, which further establishes the University of Haifa as the leading Israeli research university for sea,” said University's President Amos Shapira.

University news and updates at a glance

University news and updates at a glance

The University of Haifa and the East China Normal University (ECNU) in Shanghai signed a memorandum of cooperation on the construction of the Shanghai-Haifa International Research Center, the first of its kind in Shanghai for Israeli and Chinese academia. The joint fields of research already agreed upon include neuroscience, mathematics education technology, computing and data management, and environmental management. The collaboration between the universities will enable Israeli and Chinese researchers to submit research proposals to Chinese research funds. “This is another step in the University of Haifa’s international activity, and it will open up new horizons for the university’s researchers, in terms of the growing academic knowledge and capabilities of the Chinese academia, in terms of research infrastructures, and in terms of resources,” said Prof. David Faraggi, the University of Haifa Rector, who signed the agreement with his Chinese counterpart, the President of ECNU.

For the first time, grape seeds from the Byzantine era have been found. These grapes were used to produce “the Wine of the Negev” - one of the finest and most renowned wines in the whole of the Byzantine Empire. The charred seeds, over 1,500 years-old, were found at the Halutza excavation site in the Negev during a joint dig by the University of Haifa and the Israel Antiquities Authority. “The vines growing in the Negev today are European varieties, whereas the Negev vine was lost to the world. Our next job is to recreate the ancient wine, and perhaps in that way we will be able to reproduce its taste and understand what made the Negev wine so fine,” said Prof. Guy Bar-Oz of the University of Haifa, director of the excavation.