The Saudi King's Modern University

Related: A concurrent session at SCUP–44: Creating a New Future—For a Country (Saudi Arabia).

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Many top-notch institutions are involved in partnerships with the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST):

The first president, Choon Fong Shih, former president of the National University of Singapore, assumed his post in December. Thousands of workers arrive at the construction site each day to complete the campus by September. Yet another development, a high-tech industrial city, is being built nearby. KAUST officials say there has been no slowdown as a result of the worldwide economic crisis or collapse of oil prices. . . . [R]ecruiting, both American and KAUST officials say it has gone better than expected. Fawwaz Ulaby, former vice president for research at the University of Michigan, who is KAUST's new provost, says that about 50 of the 100 faculty positions have been filled, with six of the new spots being taken by women. . . . 'We think the quality of the faculty is very high,' Ulaby said in a telephone interview. 'People will ask why, in Saudi Arabia, we can attract people of this caliber, and I tell them it's simple. Anywhere else, researchers must spend 50 percent to 70 percent of their time chasing money to sustain their research. And many are tired of it. At KAUST they will be provided stable funding from the beginning, they will have access to more funding on a competitive basis, and they will have the best-equipped campus in the world to conduct their research. It's a huge incentive.'

Making a Smart Campus in Saudi Arabia

A brief report by Eltayeb Salih Abuelyaman at Prince Sultan University:

• What makes a teacher smart?
• What makes a classroom smart?
• Since colleges, departments, and individual courses have diverse missions, goals, and objectives, should smart classrooms be clones of each other?
• Should we make all classrooms on a campus smart?
• Are teachers ready to adapt to a new, smart environment?
• How can we help teachers take advantage of a smart environment?

Three of these questions are easily answered with a "No." We should not make all classrooms technologically enhanced clones of each other, and, no, many teachers are not ready to take full advantage of such environments. So, how does a university get to be smart? By finding answers to the other three questions—recruiting and developing smart teachers, obtaining and effectively deploying smart technology, and sustaining faculty efforts with the aid of smart pedagogical centers.