Hoya Saxa in Doha

I write this on a plane from Doha to DC, fresh from my first visit to Georgetown in Qatar as provost.

There I found a beautiful new building of integrated architecture with a multinational student body pursuing the bachelor’s curriculum in foreign service, identical to that offered on the Hilltop. Everything is new– a gleaming spacious library, high tech classrooms, a large auditorium, and a modern cafeteria.

A sense of becoming permeates the atmosphere both within the school and in Doha. The faculty is undergoing major expansion to match the increasing number of students who wish to study there.

Outside there are large building cranes seemingly on every block. The society is undergoing rapid change, supported by large revenues from natural gas. The leaders’ plan for Education City is an investment to build a strong society less dependent on those revenues. The desire to make Qatar a key education and research center for that region of the world makes the foreign service curriculum a desirable piece of the plan.

The school is a member of Education City, a grand vision to bring strong higher education programs from the world’s universities to one place. The Georgetown students can take courses also from the Texas A&M engineering school, the Cornell medical school, the Northwestern Journalism school, the Virginia Commonwealth art school, Carnegie-Mellon programs in business and some sciences, and the University College London archeology and museum programs. Georgetown also offers language training in Arabic to students whose oral skills need supplementation with written skills and speaking of a standard Arabic common to diplomacy and the multinational media.

Many of the comings and goings resemble those of the Georgetown DC. I was there at Fall exam time and peeking into a few classrooms saw the familiar scene of intense thought and feverish writing. I saw the bookstore filled with Hoya gear, even a full sized statue of Jack, the bulldog. We discussed how the Jesuit values were being communicated, how the honor code was propagated, and how diversity propelled the educational environment. For example, imagine how powerful a course on ethnic relationships can become when the students have firsthand experience with violent clashes in their own country.

Georgetown’s presence in one of the most important regions of the world allows the institution to fulfill its mission in a way impossible from the Hilltop alone. For the faculty of Georgetown studying development and international relations, it is the equivalent to a laboratory. For Hilltop students, it’s a second home to learn in a culture quite different from Washington, a key tool in preparing them to be leaders in the global future. For the students coming from many Middle East countries, it’s a place to learn the values and lessons of Georgetown. These are three strategic successes from one initiative. Those who built Georgetown would be proud, I think, of this new global way to achieve their original goals.