University officials visit MSU's Dubai campus

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As a group of five students sang “MSU Shadows,” MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon could have sworn she was in East Lansing.

Instead, she was in the Middle East, at MSU’s home away from home in Dubai.

Simon and MSU Trustees Don Nugent, Scott Romney and Melanie Foster spent part of last week at MSU Dubai for the campus’ official inauguration and ribbon-cutting ceremony.

“In the context of Dubai and the Mideast culture as we best understand it, these formal events are important milestones to reflect the ongoing commitment of both our Dubai partners as well as the university,” Simon said. “The ribbon cutting in a sense was important as that symbol.”

Opened in August, MSU Dubai — comprised of one instructional facility — is the university’s only campus in the Middle East and the only research institution in Dubai, which is one of the fastest-growing cities in the world. In its first semester, MSU Dubai offers 25 undergraduate courses to the initial class of about 50 students.

Along with the ribbon-cutting ceremony, Simon used her time to talk with business leaders in Dubai about the future of MSU’s campus. One of those leaders was Mohammed Abdullah Al Gergawi, Dubai’s minister of state for Cabinet affairs and the second person in command in Dubai. Al Gergawi also is the executive chairman of Dubai Holding, a holding company whose subsidiaries have helped develop MSU Dubai.

“(Al Gergawi) met with us privately to review a bigger vision for Dubai and the role Michigan State could play in that,” Simon said.

In addition to meeting business leaders and MSU Dubai faculty, Simon and the trustees were able to meet the Dubai’s first class of Spartans.

“The students looked and acted very similar to their peers in East Lansing,” Foster said. “They were very excited, very enthused. One thing that’s important to realize is that they’re really pioneers. They had a leap of faith signing up with a university that essentially didn’t exist. They’re very proud to be a part of MSU.”

Although Simon said many of the students she met were excited to be Spartans, there were some concerns expressed to her. Even though Dubai is an expanding metropolis, its infrastructure — namely Internet connectivity — is lagging. Because of that, Dubai students don’t experience the same high-speed connection as their East Lansing counterparts.

“It’s mainly an issue of capacity and affordability,” said John Hudzik, vice president for global engagement and strategic initiatives. “By comparison, Internet connectivity (in East Lansing), especially on campus, is relatively cheap. In Dubai, it’s priced at commercial rates. So for us to get high speed, it’s impossibly expensive at the moment.”

Simon said the students have developed a strong sense of community and are using the MSU facility not only as a learning environment, but a social gathering place, too.

“(The students) see themselves a part of MSU which I’m very pleased with,” Simon said. “We have to continue to do that as opposed to being a branch that is set aside from the university. We’re not simply an educational storefront. The degree programs are important, but it’s more than that.”

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