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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Georgia><span style='font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:Georgia'><img width=600 height=356 id="_x0000_i1025"
src="cid:image001.jpg@01C819DF.11A0C750" border=0><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=1 color="#909090" face=Arial><span
style='font-size:7.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:#909090'>Bryan Denton for The
New York Times<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=caption1><b><font size=3 color="#666666" face=Arial><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-weight:bold'>The construction site for the King
Abdullah University of Science and <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Technology</st1:City>,
<st1:country-region w:st="on">Saudi Arabia</st1:country-region></st1:place>’s
effort to build its own M.I.T.</span></font> <o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=gray face=Arial><span style='font-size:
9.5pt;font-family:Arial;color:gray'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=gray face=Arial><span style='font-size:
9.5pt;font-family:Arial;color:gray'>By THANASSIS CAMBANIS<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</NYT_BYLINE>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=gray face=Arial><span style='font-size:
9.5pt;font-family:Arial;color:gray'>Published: October 26, 2007<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:7.5pt'><font size=6 color=black
face=Georgia><span style='font-size:22.0pt;font-family:Georgia;color:black'><!--NYT_INLINE_IMAGE_POSITION1 --><NYT_TEXT>Saudi
King Tries to Grow Modern Ideas in Desert <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</NYT_HEADLINE>
<p style='line-height:18.0pt'><font size=4 face=Georgia><span style='font-size:
14.0pt;font-family:Georgia'>JIDDA, Saudi Arabia, Oct. 25 — On a marshy
peninsula 50 miles from this Red Sea port, King Abdullah of <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region
w:st="on">Saudi Arabia</st1:country-region></st1:place> is staking $12.5
billion on a gargantuan bid to catch up with the West in science and
technology. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='line-height:18.0pt'><font size=4 face=Georgia><span
style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:Georgia'><a
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/26/world/middleeast/26saudi.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=all#secondParagraph#secondParagraph"><font
color="#004276"><span style='color:#004276;display:none;text-decoration:none'>Skip
to next paragraph</span></font></a> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='line-height:18.0pt'><font size=4 face=Georgia><span
style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:Georgia'><a
href="javascript:pop_me_up2('http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2007/10/25/world/26saudi.2.RAW.html',%20'26saudi_2_RAW',%20'width=720,height=600,scrollbars=yes,toolbars=no,resizable=yes')"><font
color="#004276"><span style='color:#004276;text-decoration:none'><img border=0
width=190 height=250 id="_x0000_i1032" src="cid:image002.jpg@01C819DF.11A0C750"></span></font></a><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='line-height:8.25pt'><font size=1 color="#909090"
face=Arial><span style='font-size:7.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:#909090'>Bryan
Denton for The New York Times<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=caption2><font size=2 color="#666666" face=Arial><span
style='font-size:10.0pt'>King Abdullah has broken taboos, declaring that the
Arabs have fallen critically behind much of the modern world in intellectual
achievement.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=caption2><font size=2 color="#666666" face=Arial><span
style='font-size:10.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='line-height:18.0pt'><font size=4 face=Georgia><span
style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:Georgia'><a
href="javascript:pop_me_up2('http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2007/10/25/world/26saudi.1.RAW.html',%20'26saudi_1_RAW',%20'width=720,height=600,scrollbars=yes,toolbars=no,resizable=yes')"><font
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width=190 height=250 id="_x0000_i1033" src="cid:image003.jpg@01C819DF.11A0C750"></span></font></a><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='line-height:8.25pt'><font size=1 color="#909090"
face=Arial><span style='font-size:7.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:#909090'>Bryan
Denton for The New York Times<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=caption2><font size=2 color="#666666" face=Arial><span
style='font-size:10.0pt'>For the new institution, the king has hired the
state-owned oil giant Saudi Aramco to build the campus. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=caption2><font size=2 color="#666666" face=Arial><span
style='font-size:10.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='line-height:18.0pt'><font size=4 face=Georgia><span
style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:Georgia'><img border=0 width=190
height=238 id="_x0000_i1034" src="cid:image004.gif@01C819DF.11A0C750"><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='line-height:8.25pt'><font size=1 color="#909090"
face=Arial><span style='font-size:7.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:#909090'>The
New York Times<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=caption2><font size=2 color="#666666" face=Arial><span
style='font-size:10.0pt'>The university is going up 50 miles away from <st1:City
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Jidda</st1:place></st1:City>. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:18.0pt'><a name=secondParagraph></a><font size=4
face=Georgia><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:Georgia'>Between an oil
refinery and the sea, the monarch is building from scratch a graduate research
institution that will have one of the 10 largest endowments in the world, worth
more than $10 billion.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:18.0pt'><font size=4 face=Georgia><span style='font-size:
14.0pt;font-family:Georgia'>Its planners say men and women will study side by
side in an enclave walled off from the rest of Saudi society, the
country’s notorious religious police will be barred and all religious and
ethnic groups will be welcome in a push for academic freedom and international
collaboration sure to test the kingdom’s cultural and religious limits.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:18.0pt'><font size=4 face=Georgia><span style='font-size:
14.0pt;font-family:Georgia'>This undertaking is directly at odds with the
kingdom’s religious establishment, which severely limits women’s
rights and rejects coeducation and robust liberal inquiry as unthinkable. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:18.0pt'><font size=4 face=Georgia><span style='font-size:
14.0pt;font-family:Georgia'>For the new institution, the king has cut his own
education ministry out the loop, hiring the state-owned oil giant Saudi Aramco
to build the campus, create its curriculum and attract foreigners.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:18.0pt'><font size=4 face=Georgia><span style='font-size:
14.0pt;font-family:Georgia'>Supporters of what is to be called the King
Abdullah University of Science and Technology, or Kaust, wonder whether the
king is simply building another gated island to be dominated by foreigners,
like the compounds for oil industry workers that have existed here for decades,
or creating an institution that will have a real impact on Saudi society and
the rest of the Arab world.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:18.0pt'><font size=4 face=Georgia><span style='font-size:
14.0pt;font-family:Georgia'>“There are two <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Saudi Arabias</st1:place></st1:country-region>,” said Jamal
Khashoggi, the editor of Al Watan, a newspaper. “The question is which <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Saudi Arabia</st1:place></st1:country-region>
will take over.”<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:18.0pt'><font size=4 face=Georgia><span style='font-size:
14.0pt;font-family:Georgia'>The king has broken taboos, declaring that the
Arabs have fallen critically behind much of the modern world in intellectual
achievement and that his country depends too much on oil and not enough on
creating wealth through innovation. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:18.0pt'><font size=4 face=Georgia><span style='font-size:
14.0pt;font-family:Georgia'>“There is a deep knowledge gap separating the
Arab and Islamic nations from the process and progress of contemporary global
civilization,” said Abdallah S. Jumah, the chief executive of Saudi
Aramco. “We are no longer keeping pace with the advances of our
era.” <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:18.0pt'><font size=4 face=Georgia><span style='font-size:
14.0pt;font-family:Georgia'>Traditional Saudi practice is on display at the
biggest public universities, where the Islamic authorities vet the curriculum,
medical researchers tread carefully around controversial subjects like
evolution, and female and male students enter classrooms through separate doors
and follow lectures while separated by partitions.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:18.0pt'><font size=4 face=Georgia><span style='font-size:
14.0pt;font-family:Georgia'>Old-fashioned values even seeped into the carefully
staged groundbreaking ceremony on Sunday for King Abdullah’s new
university, at which organizers distributed an issue of the magazine The
Economist with a special advertisement for the university wrapped around the
cover. State censors had physically torn from each copy an article about Saudi
legal reform titled “Law of God Versus Law of Man,” leaving a
jagged edge.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:18.0pt'><font size=4 face=Georgia><span style='font-size:
14.0pt;font-family:Georgia'>Despite the obstacles, the king intends to make the
university a showcase for modernization. The festive groundbreaking and
accompanying symposium about the future of the modern university were devised
partly as a recruiting tool for international academics.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:18.0pt'><font size=4 face=Georgia><span style='font-size:
14.0pt;font-family:Georgia'>“Getting the faculty will be the biggest
challenge,” said Ahmed F. Ghoniem, a professor at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology who is consulting for the new university. “That
will make it or break it.” Professor Ghoniem has advised the new
university to lure international academics with laboratory facilities and
grants they cannot find at home, but he also believes that established
professors will be reluctant to leave their universities for a small enclave in
the desert.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:18.0pt'><font size=4 face=Georgia><span style='font-size:
14.0pt;font-family:Georgia'>“You have to create an environment where you
can connect to the outside world,” said Professor Ghoniem, who is from <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Egypt</st1:place></st1:country-region>.
“You cannot work in isolation.”<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:18.0pt'><font size=4 face=Georgia><span style='font-size:
14.0pt;font-family:Georgia'>He admitted that even though he admired the idea of
the new university, he would be unlikely to abandon his post at M.I.T. to move
to <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Saudi Arabia</st1:place></st1:country-region>.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:18.0pt'><font size=4 face=Georgia><span style='font-size:
14.0pt;font-family:Georgia'>Festivities at the construction site on Sunday for
1,500 dignitaries included a laser light show and a mockup of the planned
campus that filled an entire room. The king laid a crystal cornerstone into a
stainless steel shaft on wheels.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:18.0pt'><font size=4 face=Georgia><span style='font-size:
14.0pt;font-family:Georgia'>Cranes tore out mangroves and pounded the swampland
with 20-ton blocks into a surface firm enough to build the campus on. Inside a
tent, the king, his honor guard wearing flowing robes and curved daggers, and
an array of Aramco officials in suits took to a shiny stage lighted with green
and blue neon tubing, like an MTV awards show. Mist from dry ice shrouded the
stage, music blared in surround sound, and holographic projections served as a
backdrop to some of the speeches.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:18.0pt'><font size=4 face=Georgia><span style='font-size:
14.0pt;font-family:Georgia'>From a laconic monarch known for his austerity, the
pomp, along with a rare speech by the king himself, was intended to send a
strong signal, according to the team charged with building and staffing the new
campus within two years.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:18.0pt'><font size=4 face=Georgia><span style='font-size:
14.0pt;font-family:Georgia'>The king is lavishing the institution not only with
money, but also with his full political endorsement, intended to stave off
internal challenges from conservatives and to win over foreign scholars who
doubt that academic freedom can thrive here.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:18.0pt'><font size=4 face=Georgia><span style='font-size:
14.0pt;font-family:Georgia'>The new project is giving hope to Saudi scholars
who until the king’s push to reform education in the last few years have
endured stagnant research budgets and continue to face extensive government red
tape.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:18.0pt'><font size=4 face=Georgia><span style='font-size:
14.0pt;font-family:Georgia'>“Because Aramco is founding the university, I
believe it will have freedom,” said Abdulmalik A. Aljinaidi, dean of the
research and consultation institute at <st1:PlaceName w:st="on">King</st1:PlaceName>
<st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Abdulaziz</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType w:st="on">University</st1:PlaceType>,
<st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Jidda</st1:place></st1:City>’s
biggest, with more than 40,000 students. “For Kaust to succeed, it will
have to be free of all the restrictions and bureaucracy we face as a public
university.”<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:18.0pt'><font size=4 face=Georgia><span style='font-size:
14.0pt;font-family:Georgia'>Even in the most advanced genetics labs at King
Abdulaziz, the women wear full face coverings, and female students can meet
with male advisers only in carefully controlled public “free zones”
like the library. Scientists there tread carefully when they do research in
genetics, stem cells or evolution, for fear of offending Islamic social mores.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:18.0pt'><font size=4 face=Georgia><span style='font-size:
14.0pt;font-family:Georgia'>Even in <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Jidda</st1:place></st1:City>,
the kingdom’s most liberal city, a status rooted in its history as a
trading outpost, change comes slowly. This month the governor allowed families
to celebrate the post-Ramadan Id al-Fitr holiday in public, effectively
allowing men and women to socialize publicly on the same streets for the first
time.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:18.0pt'><font size=4 face=Georgia><span style='font-size:
14.0pt;font-family:Georgia'>The religious police were accused of beating a man
to death because he was suspected of selling alcohol. Conservatives have fended
off efforts by women to secure the right to drive or to run for office,
although women have made considerable gains in access to segregated education
and workplaces. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:18.0pt'><font size=4 face=Georgia><span style='font-size:
14.0pt;font-family:Georgia'>Against this backdrop, said Mr. Khashoggi, the
newspaper editor, the king has conceived of the new university as a
liberalizing counterweight, whose success depends on how much it engages the
rest of Saudi society. “Nobody wants to live in a ghetto, even a nice
one,” Mr. Khashoggi said. “As a Saudi, I say, let’s open
up.”<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:18.0pt'><font size=4 face=Georgia><span style='font-size:
14.0pt;font-family:Georgia'>Upon completion, the energy-efficient campus will
house 20,000 faculty and staff members, students and their families. Social
rules will be more relaxed, as they are in the compounds where foreign oil
workers live; women will be allowed to drive, for example. But the
kingdom’s laws will still apply: Israelis, barred by law from visiting <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Saudi Arabia</st1:place></st1:country-region>,
will not be able to collaborate with the university. And one staple of campus
life worldwide will be missing: alcohol.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:18.0pt'><font size=4 face=Georgia><span style='font-size:
14.0pt;font-family:Georgia'>The university president will be a foreigner, and
the faculty members and graduate students at first will be overwhelmingly
foreign as well. Generous scholarships will finance the 2,000 graduate
students; planners expect the Saudi share of the student body to increase over
the years as scholarships aimed at promising current undergraduates help groom
them for graduate studies at the new university.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:18.0pt'><font size=4 face=Georgia><span style='font-size:
14.0pt;font-family:Georgia'>The university’s entire model is built around
partnerships with other international universities, and faculty members are
expected to have permanent bases at other research institutions abroad.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:18.0pt'><font size=4 face=Georgia><span style='font-size:
14.0pt;font-family:Georgia'>The university will also rely on a new free-market
model. The faculty members will not have tenure, and almost all of them will
have joint appointments. While the university will initially be awash in money,
its faculty and graduate students will still have to compete with top international
institutions for the limited pool of private money that underwrites most
graduate research. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:18.0pt'><font size=4 face=Georgia><span style='font-size:
14.0pt;font-family:Georgia'>Suhair el-Qurashi, dean of the private all-female
Dar Al Hekma College, often attacked as “bad” and
“liberal,” said a vigorous example of free-thinking at the
university would embolden the many Saudis who back the king’s quest to
reform long-stagnant higher education.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='line-height:18.0pt'><font size=4 face=Georgia><span style='font-size:
14.0pt;font-family:Georgia'>“The king knows he will face some backlash
and bad publicity,” Ms. Qurashi said. “I think the system is moving
in the right direction.”<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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