Jordan Times
Friday, July 1, 2005
DePaul University to
open branch in Jordan
By Mohammad Ghazal
AMMAN — The Chicago-based DePaul University will
open a branch in the Kingdom offering a variety of ICT-related programmes as of
this September.
Classes will temporarily be held at the Princess Alia University College in
Amman, where the US university will equip the labs with the necessary devices.
The university's permanent headquarters will be built in Amman over the next
year, and include lecture halls and modern scientific utilities designed in the
style of the mother university in Chicago, according to a statement made
available to The Jordan Times.
Khalid Zayyat, the regional director of the university, will head the Amman
branch, to be administratively and logistically run by a local company
specialised in administering higher education projects, the statement said.
The branch, the first in the Middle East, will be established under a strategic
partnership agreement signed this week between the Balqa Applied University (BAU)
and DePaul University.
The branch, which is to operate under the BAU umbrella, will offer several
programmes at the postgraduate level in information privacy and secrecy,
software engineering, knowledge management, information system management and
various specialities in underground and wireless communications, among others.
Not just Jordanian, but also Arabs and foreign students can enrol in the
university and they have the choice to pursue their studies at the mother
university in Chicago, the statement said.
“What distinguishes this US university is its techniques of teaching and
practical training, which link the education outputs immediately to the needs of
the market,” BAU President Omar Rimawi said.
Under the partnership agreement signed between the two sides, top BA and MA
students will have the chance to compete for full scholarships at the higher
education level in the US university.
The BAU staff will be dispatched to DePaul University to develop their skills
and abilities with training on advanced methods of teaching, the statement said.
DePaul University, founded by the Vincentians in 1898, is the largest private
institution in Chicago.
DePaul serves over 23,000 students who reflect a broad diversity of ethnic,
religious, geographic and economic backgrounds, according to the university's
website.