When Michigan State University announced plans to expand into Dubai in 2007,
President Lou Anna K. Simon described the move as "transformational for a
university with an expanding 'world-grant' mission" (get it? --
"world-grant," not "land-grant"). She added that "other U.S.
institutions are likely to follow MSU’s path."
Any followers would do well to learn from Michigan State’s combination of ambition, mistakes and misfortune. After just two years of operation, MSU Dubai has moved to immediately discontinue its undergraduate programs due to under-enrollment. That just 85 students are affected is testament to the extent of the institution’s struggle.
"This work that we tried to do, in which essentially students who were studying in Dubai had the same admissions standards, curriculum and course expectations as if they were in East Lansing, proved to be more difficult to pull off than we had imagined," Simon said in an interview Tuesday. "Part of that you can blame on the economic circumstances" -- MSU Dubai opened its doors in fall 2008 as a global recession closed in -- "part of it, you can look at ways in which the experiment began and some of the underlying assumptions."
To read the full, original article click on this link: News: Throwing in the Towel - Inside Higher Ed
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