A delegation from St. Clair County Community College traveled to Qatar in January and discussed student and faculty educational opportunities with leaders in the Middle Eastern country.

Attending the trip were SC4 Board of Trustees Chair John D. Adair, SC4 Trustee Dr. Nicholas J. DeGrazia, SC4 President Dr. Kevin A. Pollock, SC4 Professor Robert Tansky and SC4 Professor Emeritus Dr. Thomas Mooney.

The trip was paid for and sponsored by officials in Qatar. Qatar is a country in the Arabian Gulf and is one of the wealthiest nations in the Gulf Cooperation Council region because of its vast reserves of natural gas.

Several high-ranking Qatari officials are alumni of SC4. They include His Excellence Abdulla Bin Hamad Al-Attiyah, who is minister of energy and industry, chairman of Qatar Petroleum and five-time president of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

Other alumni include His Excellence Abdullah Khalid Al-Attiya, governor of Qatar Central Bank; Abdulrahman Bin Hamad Al-Attiyah, secretary general of the Gulf Cooperation Council; Mohamed Abdulla Al-Attyia, petroleum engineer; and Sultan K. Elsewidi, retired sports industry executive.

• Community college collaboration — Modeling the framework of U.S. community colleges, Qatar is establishing its first community college in September in its capital city of Doha. SC4 has responded to a request for proposal on areas where SC4 can offer its expertise. Qatar would pay any SC4 expenses, and SC4 faculty and staff would gain experience they could bring into the classroom by working with Qatari education officials.
• Student and faculty exchanges — SC4 and the future Community College of Qatar hope to offer student and faculty exchanges. SC4 students would expand their global awareness and faculty would bring back to the SC4 classroom cultural, economic and political insight for their students.
• Possible visit to SC4 by Gulf Cooperation Council secretary general — Abdulrahman Bin Hamad Al-Attiyah, secretary general of the Gulf Cooperation Council, will be in the United States in late September and is looking at visiting SC4. He is minister of state in Qatar. The Gulf Cooperation Council is a political and economic union involving the six Arab states of the Persian Gulf to establish a common market and common regulations in several areas. The visit would provide a unique educational opportunity for SC4 students and the community.
• Students from Qatar to study English at SC4 — SC4 has been asked to put together an intensive English study program for students from Qatar. Such a program could provide revenue for the college while at the same time providing SC4 students with the experience of getting to know international students from the Middle East.

For observations made by various members of the delegation during the trip, as well as discussions between the delegation and SC4 students, visit SC4’s Phi Theta Kappa blog at www.sc4.edu/ptk. SC4 hopes to expand similar contacts between SC4 students and those at Qatar University, Community College of Qatar and Education City, a Qatar site that hosts branch campuses of six U.S. universities.