VOA慢速英语2009-Education Report - Studying at an American Unive

This is the VOA Special English Education Report.

This week in our series on American higher education, we discuss programs that are available in the Middle East.

We talked last week about Michigan State University which opened a campus in August in the United Arab Emirates. MSU Dubai offers undergraduate degrees in areas including business, engineering, education and telecommunications. It also offers some graduate programs.

This October, Michigan State plans to open a pre-college program -- the MSU Dubai Academy. The aim is to help foreign students prepare to attend an American school.
　
A lecture hall at Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar

Other American universities with campuses in the Middle East include Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, Georgetown, Northwestern, Texas A&M and Virginia Commonwealth¹. They have campuses in Qatar. New York University plans to open a campus in Abu Dhabi in two thousand ten.

But the worldwide economic downturn is affecting the plans of some schools. For example, earlier this year Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania suspended its plans to open a campus in Abu Dhabi.

And George Mason University in Virginia is closing its campus in Ras Al Khaimah, another of the United Arab Emirates. One reason is the recession. But the campus Web site says that several issues made it impossible for the university to offer the same quality education as in the United States.

University Provost Peter Stearns tells us that the effort failed largely because of a dispute with their local partner in the campus. The disagreement involved the operating budget and academic control.

The George Mason campus opened in two thousand six. But student numbers have been disappointing. Peter Stearns says the campus had between two hundred fifty and three hundred students this year. He says more than fifty of them hope to attend the home campus in Fairfax, Virginia, in September.

And he says George Mason will remain involved in education in the Middle East as an adviser² to the American University in Dubai.

The Harvard Medical School Dubai Center was launched in two thousand four. It offers professional development and postgraduate³ training but no degree programs. Harvard says it has no plans for a campus, but wants to help Dubai develop its Academic Medical Center.

And that's the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. Earlier reports in our Foreign Student Series are at voaspecialenglish.com. I'm Steve Ember.

1 commonwealth   

n.共和国，联邦，共同体

参考例句：

• He is the chairman of the commonwealth of artists.他是艺术家协会的主席。
• Most of the members of the Commonwealth are nonwhite.英联邦的许多成员国不是白人国家。

2 adviser   

n.劝告者，顾问

参考例句：

• They employed me as an adviser.他们聘请我当顾问。
• Our department has engaged a foreign teacher as phonetic adviser.我们系已经聘请了一位外籍老师作为语音顾问。

3 postgraduate   

adj.大学毕业后的，大学研究院的；n.研究生

参考例句：

• I didn't put down that I had postgraduate degree.我没有写上我有硕士学位。
• After college,Mary hopes to do postgraduate work in law school.大学毕业后， 玛丽想在法学院从事研究工作。