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[globalnomad2]

"A brand-new 'American University of RAK' already fully accredited?" I said to my source, the former professor at both Wollongong and GMU-RAK. "In both the US and UAE?? That's incredible. Surely you mean UAE only?" My source replies:

As far as I know, AURAK has only been accredited by the UAE Ministry. There�s talk of insisting on US accreditation for all Universities in Dubai Academic City, but RAK doesn�t even insist on UAE accreditation, and Federalism means the Ministry can�t force them. What�s strange is that the Sheikh pushed to get the AURAK accredited before it opened (and I don�t think it�s opened yet), but hasn�t pushed for GMURAK to be accredited at all (GMU was required to get US accreditation for GMURAK, otherwise they wouldn�t have bothered).

The GMURAK Admin building is sucking up a lot of cash (though that money is also being used for AURAK, since [the campus director], and, presumably the rest, are working as admin for both). GMURAK will have 15 full time faculty for Spring, and is still hiring, but has almost no money coming in, so I have no idea who�s paying their salaries. The fact that there�s no rent helps a lot, compared with Dubai (where rents start at about $1,000,000 per year), but I still see financial haemorrhaging. [A former dean] said GMU has absolutely no financial ties with GMURAK, but is only providing guidance since GMURAK is using the GMU brand. Either [the dean] doesn�t know about the finances, or s/he�s still quoting the party line. I know the ESL program in 2005 paid GMU a modest sum, since there�s a charge for the materials that generates a decent profit for GMU. There must have been something similar for the GMU academic program, or at least a hope for something similar. GMU might have had to forego all fees for the academic program during start-up, but there�s no way the likes of us will ever know what was really going on.

I was told that the monthly trips of large groups of GMU admins to visit RAK have stopped. [The dean] either didn�t know or wouldn�t tell me who paid for those trips, which weren�t cheap. If the Sheikh was paying for everything, then decided GMU was too expensive, that would explain a lot. If GMU was hoping to end up like Wollongong (which charges Wollongong Dubai fees of US$20,000,000 per year for the name, but used to subsidize 50%, so Wollongong Dubai was allowed to get by paying only US$10,000,000 per year), and was investing heavily in start-up, they may have decided to stop throwing good money after bad. Faculty, having gotten trapped in RAK, are all worried what�s to become of them (the ones coming in this Spring have no idea).

Since AURAK is fully accredited in the UAE, and since there�s no sign of a separate campus, my guess is that GMURAK will soon be AURAK, accredited in the UAE but not by SACS [the Southern Assoc. of Colleges and Schools]. In the transition, [the GMURAK campus director] can keep whomever s/he likes and discharge whomever s/he doesn�t like with impunity, which will suit him/her very well.

I heard, though, that GMURAK finally submitted their application for UAE accreditation, but hasn�t heard back yet. The application costs Dh 200,000, which is a lot to waste if the Sheikh and the director plan to shut it down shortly. Of course, my source who assured me that the application has gone in is somewhat gullible, and may have believed the director when s/he said that the application had finally been completed and submitted.

I suspect the Sheikh will manage to lose more money with AURAK on top of what he�s lost with GMURAK. GMURAK is in an old, abandoned campus, which didn�t cost anything, but the �new campus,� which is entirely in PhotoShop [nothing's been built yet], cost the sheikh more than $10,000,000. Making me think I should take up a career in digital photography (of course, I�d need a patron who�ll pay $10,000,000 for a few pictures).

[veiledsentiments]

I just did a google and there seems to theoretically be two new places... There is something called the "British American University" which was supposed to have opened in 2006 and it says that it already had full accreditation from state and local authorities. (??) Did it ever appear?:

http://www.ameinfo.com/73663.html

and then there is "The American University" to start Fall of 2009:

http://aur.ae/

Neither of them appear to yet have an actual website... or probably much else.

VS

[globalnomad2]

Don't know anything about the "British-American" one, although when I arrived in RAK in 2005 there was a castle-like building on a hilltop with a sign that said British University, which hadn't opened yet, and apparently never did. Eventually the sign was taken down and the building appeared to be empty as of August when I left.