Virginia Commonwealth University - Qatar

Virginia Commonwealth University – Qatar (VCUQatar or VCUQ) is Virginia Commonwealth University’s Qatari branch of its School of the Arts. The main campus is located in Richmond, Virginia. VCUQ is located at Education City in Doha, Qatar.

VCUQ is accredited by the National Association of Schools of Art & Design, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, and the Council for Interior Design Accreditation.^[1]

Mission

VCUQatar’s stated mission is to “cultivate a dynamic intercultural environment of diverse research, learning and community engagement that propels the holistic development of exemplary artists, designers, and scholars to build vibrant communities and diversified economies.^[1]

History

VCUQatar was the first campus established in Education City in 1998.^[2] It has since been joined by Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, Weill Cornell Medical College, Texas A&M, Carnegie Mellon University, Northwestern University, HEC Paris, and University College London. VCUQ renewed its contract in July 2012 and it is in effect through June 2022.^[2]

Funding

VCUQatar is funded by the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science, and Community Development, a semi-private non-profit organization founded by then-emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani and his second wife and mother of current emir, Moza bint Nasser.

Aside from funding of the campus in Qatar and the management fee that the university receives as profit, universities who agree to open branches in Qatar are often the recipients of endowed chairs at the U.S. campuses.^[3]

In 2014, the estimated budget of VCUQatar provided to VCU by the Qatar Foundation was nearly $42 million. On top of that, undergraduate tuition was almost $25,000.^[4]

Degrees offered

VCUQatar offers Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees in fashion design, graphic design, interior design, and painting & printmaking, a Bachelor of Arts degree in art history, and a Master of Fine Arts degree in design.^[1]

Transcripts from VCUQatar indicate that the courses were completed in Qatar, but the diploma is issued by VCU in Richmond, Virginia.^[5]

Student life

VCUQatar has 323 students representing 38 nationalities between its undergraduate and graduate students.^[1]

The university was originally opened for women, but in 2008 began also accepting men.^[3]

Per VCU’s agreement with the Qatar Foundation, at least 70% of admitted students must be Qatari citizens.^[2]

Since Qatar adheres to a strict form of Islam called Wahhabism, standards for social conduct are much stricter and more conservative.^[3]

Alcohol is strictly regulated by the State of Qatar. Only individuals with a permit allowing them to purchase alcohol from Qatari authorized vendors are allowed to possess or consume alcohol. Consumption of alcohol is forbidden to all Muslims.^[6] These policies, in part, create a much more regulated and conservative student life experience than at VCU’s campus in Richmond.

Facilities

In 2010, a major expansion project allowed VCUQ to more than double its facilities, integrating its undergraduate and graduate programs under one roof. The expansion also extended the technical spaces to include a media lab, digital fabrication lab, printmaking studios, a photography studio, an expanded library and the region’s first materials library.^[1]

Academic and intellectual freedom

In Qatar, the monarchy has absolute authority over all aspects of life, including its strict adherence to Sharia Law.^[7] There are also strict censorship laws that at times have spilled over into Education City, despite the countries stated claims that the institutions there have total academic and intellectual freedoms.

In 2014, a book by VCUQatar’s English professor, Mohanalakshmi Rajakumar, Love Comes Later was banned by the State of Qatar with no explanation.^[7] Rajakumar has stated that she wrote the book with the Qatari “sensibilities of the public culture” in mind, meaning that the book did not include the main three objections: sex, atheism, and politics.^[8] Rajakumar founded the Doha Writer’s Workshop.^[8]

Some art that has been displayed at VCUQatar has had to be taken down as some Qatari students found it to be disrespectful to their culture, an issue that reflects the differences in conservatism and social practices that are present at the Qatari campus.^[2]

Criticisms

Along with other U.S. campuses in Education City, a campus in Qatar has a certain reputational risk associated with it. Not only do they risk devaluing the degrees of their U.S. campus, but the campus also ties them to a regime with extensive critics and foreign policy that runs contrary to that of the United States.^[7] Qatar’s ties to terrorist and extremist groups such as Al Qaeda, Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, a terrible human rights record, and World Cup 2022 corruption allegations have drawn heavy criticism to US universities there.^[7][9]

Recently, with the visit of First Lady Michelle Obama, US scholar and analyst David Andrew Weinberg called on schools in Education City to speak out against radicalism being spread through Education City’s main mosque. Speakers at the mosque have called for the mass murder of “infidels” and described the Charlie Hebdo shootings and 9/11 as segments of a “comedy film."^[10] Many of these statements go against accepted policies on freedom of speech at the US campuses of universities such as VCU.^[10]

U.S. public universities in Qatar including VCU, Texas A&M and Houston Community College, who recently scaled back its Qatari operations, have all received criticism for their Qatari campuses. The criticisms have focused on how the abroad campus goes against the institutions’ obligations to educate American students, or students within their local districts.^[11] Some have criticized them for using resources, such as professors that should be in the American branch campuses, that should be put towards educating American students.^[12] While VCU does not use Virginia taxpayer dollars to fund the campus, they do sometimes send professors from their home campus to Doha for shorter term teaching positions.^[2]

Leadership

Administration:

• Akel I. Kahera, Ph.D. – Dean
• Line Ulrike Christiansen – Associate Dean for Academic Affairs
• Gary Huff – Associate Dean for Administration
• Meike Kaan – Executive Director for Communications and External Relations
• Valerie Jeremijenko – Assistant Dean of Student Affairs
• Greet Provoost – Associate Dean, Enrollment and Registration Services
• Michael John Arrighi – Chief Safety Officer

The school is advised by a Joint Advisory Board, which per the agreement with the Qatar Foundation must be composed of three members appointed by each VCU and the Qatar Foundation and three independent members which are jointly appointed by VCU and the Qatar Foundation.^[2]

References