Bard College and Al-Quds University to Open Joint College

CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION
February 8, 2009

JERUSALEM — Bard College in New York and Al-Quds University in East Jerusalem will open a joint college in September 2009, modeled on the college Bard opened in Russia with St. Petersburg University a decade ago.

The Al-Quds Bard Honors College for Liberal Arts and Sciences — as it will be known — will eventually accept 100 new students each year for the four-year course. The first 60 students are expected to enroll this fall and will be awarded joint degrees from Al-Quds and Bard. The self-standing autonomous college is recruiting an entire new faculty and will occupy a building on the Al-Quds campus originally built to house the Palestinian Parliament and Yasser Arafat’s office. Applications for the founding dean of the new college, who is expected to speak both English and Arabic, have been requested by the end of February 2009.

Bard and Al-Quds are also planning a joint master of arts in teaching (MAT) program and a model high school. “The honors college and MAT programs are to be launched in summer 2009 and will be located on the Abu Dis Campus of Al-Quds University. The model school is scheduled to open in fall 2010,” according to a job vacancy for a project coordinator advertised on the Bard College website.

“Al-Quds and Bard College are initiating partnerships with public schools in the West Bank and Jerusalem representing different models of student learning. Teachers in the pioneer schools will be the first cadre of students in the MAT Program and will serve as mentor teachers for future apprentice teachers,” Bard announced in its search for a director of the MAT program.

Plans for the new college were finalized in a joint memorandum signed by Bard College President Leon Botstein and Al-Quds University President Sari Nusseibeh during a visit to Bard by Mr. Nusseibeh and his senior colleagues in August 2008. Half of the $3-million budget for the first two years is being donated by the George Soros Foundation, with the balance coming from Bard fundraising programs. — Matthew Kalman