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Educational Exchange with the State of Qatar
Karmah S. Elmusa
Published in 2005
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Off the eastern coast of Saudi Arabia, and just north of the United Arab Emirates can be found a small peninsula extending into the Persian Gulf. This peninsula, known as the State of Qatar since 1971, is home to just under a million people and is roughly half as large as New Jersey. Qatar’s youth and size are not indicators, however, of the impact it seems ready to make on the Middle East and the world at large. Indeed, Qatar not only houses the headquarters of Al Jazeera, an immensely popular global Arabic satellite television network, but it also stands at the forefront of ground-breaking natural gas technology. Qatar is also pioneering in terms of education innovation. Since 2003, Georgetown University has established three different working relationships with the State of Qatar and its embassy here in Washington, DC. Most recent is the addition of Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service to the Qatari development known as Education City. Two years ago, with generous funding from Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, CCAS developed a post-doctoral fellowship. And finally,CCAS administers a program that sends students from the United States to study at the University of Qatar each year.
In the spring of 2005, Georgetown University officials announced the opening of a branch of the School of Foreign Service on the outskirts of the Qatari capital of Doha. This subdivision of SFS has now materialized as the latest addition to the aforementioned Education City, the brainchild of Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser Al-Missned. Sheikha Mozah is the Chair of the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science, and Community Development, a private non-profit organization committed to the principle that a nation’s greatest resource is its people. Sheikha Mozah welcomed Georgetown to the community, saying “the need for sound policy and diplomacy…is evident. In this regard, Georgetown was our best choice to assist in developing the potential diplomats of the future. This is fully consistent with our vision at the Qatar Foundation for realizing human potential and building bridges between people.” The “city” itself, whose construction aimed to introduce a smattering of American universities into Qatar—thereby enhancing local educational opportunities—now includes departments from Cornell, Texas A&M, Carnegie Mellon and Virginia Commonwealth University. It is also home to a range of other educational, science and technology programs and offices.GeorgetownUniversityPresident John J. DeGioia commented that he is “excited about the opportunity to extend [SFS]’s international presence to an important region of the world.”
Students at SFS-Qatar will be recruited largely from English-language international schools from the eastern Mediterranean to South Asia. In this start-up year, 12 of the incoming freshmen are Qatari; the other 13 are from the Philippines, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Bosnia and the United States. Fifteen are women, 10 are men. The admissions team is headed by SFS-Qatar director of admissions and former CCAS staffer, Liz Kepferle. Dr. James Reardon-Anderson, Dean of SFS-Qatar, said that in the future the student body will grow to include about 100 students. The core curriculum will be modeled
exactly after SFS-DC, with the exception that all students will major in International Politics. The curriculum requires that students take courses in government, political and social thought, as well as economics, and exhibit proficiency in a second language.This program of study is one that prepares students from around the world for positions of leadership in the private, public, and non-profit sectors. Familiar faculty include Dr. Ibrahim Oweiss teaching Economics and Dr. Amira Sonbol, who will teach a history course on Middle East Civilization this year.
Prior to the launch of SFS-Qatar, in June 2003 the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the State of Qatar decided to fund a new initiative at CCAS, the Qatar Post-Doctoral Fellowship on US-Arab Relations or Islamic Studies. This fellowship enables the Center to bring to Georgetown each year new academics who can offer fresh perspectives. The fellowship, now in its second year, supports recent PhDs for one year, allowing them to prepare their dissertation for publication. Recipient also conduct a seminar in the spring semester as well as deliver a lecture at CCAS about their research. The 2004 recipient of the fellowship was Kristin Smith, a graduate of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies whose focus is Islamic finance.Thisyear’sfellowship was offered to Kenneth Garden, who was profiledinthe May 2005 issue of CCAS News.
CCAS also has an agreement with the University of Qatar to administer a scholarship program that sends five students from the United States to study advanced Arabic at the University of Qatar for one year. CCAS advertises and conducts admissions for this program, the first of its kind to benefit US-based students. Sam Parker, a MAAS student, was in the first group of scholarship recipients. His experience studying in Qatar last year is included in this issue of CCAS News. The scholarship program gives MAAS students the rare opportunity to study Arabic in a Gulf country. CCAS is grateful for the support of outgoing Ambassador of Qatar to the US, Bader Omar Al Dafa, and looks forward to working with incoming Ambassador Nasser Bin Hamad Al-Khalifa, former Ambassador of Qatar to the UK.
The Qatari embassy’s webpage is hopeful that “rising from the sands of Qatar may be the answer to America’s image problem in the Middle East.” This remains to be seen, but at the very least, these educational initiatives will open the doors for more exchange and learning. As Qatar Foundation Senior Media Officer Geoff Kelly told The Hoya, “We want to become a hub for education and research in the region. We want to produce a new generation of critical thinkers who are comfortable in the international marketplace—which is one of the reasons that Georgetown is a natural fitforushere.”
While these initiatives are still young, CCAS, Georgetown University and The Qatar Foundation are confident in their growth and ongoing success. To find out more about the Qatar Post-Doctoral Fellowship or the University of Qatar scholarship program, please contact CCAS Assistant Director Naila H. Sherman. For more information on Education City and/or SFS-Qatar, please visit the official Qatar Foundation web site at http://www.qf.edu.qa.
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