Carnegie Mellon University could reach an agreement next month to set up an undergraduate school in business and computer science in the Middle East.
The move is part of the university's broad plan to establish a presence in key regions around the world. Officials in Qatar, a tiny sheikdom on the Persian Gulf, hope a pact with CMU will play a key role in building Education City, a modern version of ancient Alexandria, near its capital, Doha.
Carnegie Mellon President Jared L. Cohon confirmed the likelihood of an agreement in January.
Carnegie Mellon Provost Mark Kamlet said university and Qatari officials will meet in London Jan. 3-4 to wrap up the details. "We have a contract that is 99 percent finished," he said.
If the pact is signed next month, Kamlet said the school will start this fall with 50 students, half in computer science and half in business. The branch would grow to 200 students over four years.
"I would guess the cost of this will certainly exceed $100 million over a period of time, and they're bearing the cost," Kamlet said. "We're not taking a financial risk."
The campus is the brainchild of Qatar's first lady, Sheika Mouzah Bint Nasser Al Missned, chairwoman of the Qatar Foundation. The goal is to build a comprehensive center of learning and culture by 2008.
Allan Goodman, president of the New York City-based Institute for International Education, visited Education City in March.
He was impressed with the autonomy U.S. universities there have to set their own standards, curricula and governance. He said Qatar's open, merit-based admissions are in stark contrast to the corruption that limits college access to the elite in many parts of the world.
"Even in the 21st century, that is revolutionary and an almost new concept in probably 150 countries," he said.
Goodman said Qatar already has invested $1 billion in Education City.
"Instead of having other companies from Europe and the United States run their oil business, they want to train their own citizens to stay there and do this kind of work," said Peggy A. Knapp, chairwoman of Carnegie Mellon's Faculty Senate.
The opportunity to start a business and computer science school is a feather in Carnegie Mellon's cap because Qatar invites only the dominant universities in their fields.
Cornell University has launched a medical college there; Texas A&M University, an engineering school; Virginia Commonwealth University, a design arts program; and the California-based RAND think tank, a policy institute.
"That is an indication of the general strength of American higher education and the specific strength that Carnegie Mellon has," said Nils Hasselmo, president of the Association of American Universities, a Washington, D.C.-based group of the most prominent universities in the country. CMU is one of its members.
Knapp said the university is seeking guarantees about academic freedom, security and curriculum. Also, the university wants to ensure degrees will be from Carnegie Mellon and not "Carnegie Mellon at Qatar."
She said Qatar will pay for the construction and maintenance of the building Carnegie Mellon occupies, the salaries of visiting professors and part of the cost of the faculty that replace them at CMU's U.S. main campus in Oakland.
"The people who've been there have been very impressed with the students," Knapp said. "They say that they're bright, that they're forthcoming, that they're able and very willing to talk in classroom situations."
This is not Carnegie Mellon's first big endeavor outside Pittsburgh.
Last year, it established a branch campus at NASA's Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley. CMU also is a partner with Singapore Management University, which recently created a new information systems school.
"We would like to do joint research with (Singapore Management University) and a joint master's program in information technology with an emphasis in cyber security," Cohon said. He returned last month from a money-raising trip to Asia, where he met with university officials in Singapore to discuss the new venture.
One potential concern with Education City is how it will affect enrollment of Middle Eastern students at American colleges.
"As alternative opportunities for education develop, that could reduce the flow of students to the United States," Hasselmo said. He said some of the students who attend programs in Education City could do graduate studies in the United States.
The number of Middle Eastern students attending American colleges declined from 38,545 in 2001-02 to 34,803 last year. Goodman attributes the decrease to concerns by students and their families about how Muslim students are treated in the United States following 9/11.
Even if the United States loses some Middle Eastern students, Hasselmo supports the creation of American branches in Qatar.
"It's very much in our self-interest to make sure that that part of world has strong economic development and can deal with some of the unemployment problems they have encountered," he said.
