By Joseph Varghese/Staff Reporter
Georgetown University in Qatar (GU-Q) plans to develop more graduate programmes in the near future, dean Dr Gerd Nonneman said yesterday.
“Our intention is to develop further graduate programmes and this will have to be in consultation with Qatar Foundation, Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU) as well as our parent campus in the US. We are looking forward to joint programmes with other universities as well as programmes for community education,” he said at a press conference where he gave details of plans to celebrate the university’s 10th anniversary.
Nonneman also said GU-Q targets to have at least 1,500 alumni by 2030 out of which more than 500 would be Qatar nationals.
“Presently there are about 212 alumni and by this year, the number will go up to 270. Almost all of them are all employed in high-profile organisations in different sectors all over the world.”
He said the alumni “are working in a spectrum of areas. Many are working in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs while there are others following law, media, banking, teaching, sports and energy sectors. Over 40 of the alumni are pursuing higher studies in top universities such as Harvard, Columbia, Georgetown, and Oxford among others.”
The dean said that around 80-85 scholarly works are published by the faculty of the university every year. Our students also play an important role in this regard.”
He said over 160,000 people visited the university last year.
“We have only about 300 people in the university including students but the visits to the library show that the public are getting benefited by our resources. It is already a national resource and we have purposely opened up the resources for the wider community.”
Nonneman also spoke about a number of collaborations that the university has engaged in.
“We have a number of collaborations with top organisations such as Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Qatar University, Brookings Centre Doha, Silatech and Teach For Qatar and we would like to partner with Education Above All. We also are co-operating with the Committee for Delivery and Legacy 2022 as well as Jasoor Institute.”
He said the partnerships allow internships for students.
The dean said the partnership with other universities in the Education City and HBKU has resulted in developing a unique programme which is an executive masters programme in energy and natural resources.
“We have done it in collaboration with Texas A&M University at Qatar and HEC Paris Qatar. Only here, we can do something of that sort as we have the opportunity to collaborate with so many universities here in Qatar.”
He said: “We opened the Qatar campus of Georgetown a decade ago with two dozen students and a few faculty members. Today, Georgetown in Qatar is a research powerhouse, constantly adding to the global body of knowledge about matters local, regional and international, and helping to lay the foundations for a sustainable research ecosystem that will be a lasting legacy for both Georgetown and the State of Qatar.”
Nonneman said GU-Q will celebrate its 10th anniversary with a special two-day conference in February.
The conference titled “Scapes of Power: A Critical Appraisal” will take place at the university campus on February 3 and 4, featuring prominent scholars and academics from across the world.
The event will present a sweeping appraisal of historical and contemporary examples of power expressed through cultural, social, economic and political institutions, as well as identifying and analysing non-traditional modes of power that are emerging from the dramatic political shifts underway worldwide.
The conference on both days will begin with lectures from keynote speakers.
Dr Laura Doyle, a professor at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, will present “Inter-imperial Powerscapes” and Dr Sherman Jackson, a professor at the University of Southern California, will discuss “Islam and Power: Between Shariah and the Islamic Secular” on the first and second day.
A range of topics will present new ways of understanding how power has been used to control society from above, but also how it can be harnessed to enable change from below.
“We are celebrating what Georgetown University does best: innovative thought. So to celebrate 10 years of intellectual innovation at Georgetown, we want people to think of power in a new way and through thoughtful and innovative research, which is in keeping with the university’s reputation as a premier research institution,” said Dr Amira Sonbol, professor of history, and a member of the organising committee of the conference.
“As part of the 10th anniversary celebrations, we have decided to organise a conference that would be inclusive of all the fields researched and taught at Georgetown in Doha. In our discussions as a committee it became apparent that the one subject that binds all of us - whether specialists in economics, political science, history, linguistics, anthropology or literature - is power,” said Mohamed Reza Pirbhai, associate professor of History at GU-Q and chair of the conference working committee.
Nonneman speaks at a press conference yesterday. PICTURE: Nasser T K
