KAMU: Watch TAMU-Qatar Building Dedication On KAMU Website (2007-03-26)

A video is now available on the KAMU Website of the building dedication ceremony recently held in "Education City" in Dohar, Qatar. Click here to go to the website and play the video.

(Here's a reprint of an earlier news article about the video from "News at Texas A&M University").

COLLEGE STATION, MARCH 12, 2007 - Texas A&M University at Qatar will showcase its new permanent facilities in Education City, Doha, Qatar, with three days of celebrations, beginning Sunday (March 18).

The celebrations will feature investiture of Dean and Chief Executive Officer Mark Weichold, an Aggie Ring presentation, the Engineering Building celebration and a Middle East Aggie reunion and barbecue. The leadership of the State of Qatar and distinguished guests from Texas, the rest of the United States and around the world will attend.

Texas A&M began teaching engineering courses in Qatar in 2003 through a partnership with Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development. The program, fully funded by Qatar Foundation, offers undergraduate degrees in chemical, electrical, mechanical and petroleum engineering.

Texas A&M at Qatar programs have operated for the past four years in temporary quarters. The new facility - scheduled to open later this year - will be one of the largest and most technologically advanced engineering education facilities in the world. The 595,000-square foot facility, designed by renowned Mexican architect Ricardo Legorreta, will be a centerpiece for Education City, a multi-university campus complex. Texas A&M's neighbors in Education City are Virginia Commonwealth University, Weill Cornell Medical College, Carnegie Mellon University and Georgetown University.

Qatar Foundation officials are enthusiastic about the promise of Education City.

"Education City is unique in the world. Nowhere else have five leading universities come together to contribute those areas in which they excel to a new entity that is greater than all of them," said Dr. Abdulla Al-Thani, Vice President for Education, Qatar Foundation. "Qatar Foundation is the host and the guiding spirit of this project which is probably the most ambitious and important initiative taking place in higher education anywhere in the world."

Texas A&M Interim President Eddie J. Davis said the new facility and the programs conducted there will contribute to the future of Qatar and the rest of the Middle East.

"This new facility will further advance our partnership goals of educating some of Qatar's future leaders while enhancing Texas A&M's reputation by contributing to better cross-cultural understanding within the Gulf Region and throughout the world," Davis said.

The new engineering facility will allow TAMUQ to be the first university in Education City to offer graduate degree programs in the fall of 2007, pending approval by the Qatar Foundation. Mark Weichold, Dean & CEO of Texas A&M University at Qatar said: TAMUQ is engaging the best faculty members from around the world to direct the learning process and to conduct scholarly activity in fields important to Qatar and the world."

The Qatar program provides unique opportunities for Texas A&M to develop world-class interdisciplinary research centers in areas addressing global concerns about energy development and production (natural gas and oil); sustainable development and environmental studies; global information technology; electrical power and communications systems; turbo-machinery and fluid dynamics (for power and industrial applications); business innovation for emerging economies and 21st century studies.

TAMUQ also helps enhance globalization efforts at Texas A&M's main campus as students from the Qatar program take coursework in College Station in the summer sessions of their sophomore and junior year. This provides opportunities for both cultures to interact and learn from one another. A group of students from TAMUQ will visit College Station March 25 - 29 as part of the Doha/College Station Leadership Exchange Program.

For more information about TAMUQ, go to: http://www.qatar.tamu.edu/.

Click here to play the video