Unless you have been living in some sort of backwater or under a regime intolerant of diverse opinions, you no doubt have heard that Cal Poly is trying to put together a ‘deal’ with their new friends in Saudi Arabia. Here’s the deal:
Saudi Arabia is looking to mine the high-tech expertise of American universities. The country recently set its sights on Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, which would set up an engineering program in Saudi Arabia. But the lucrative contract comes with a caveat: The Saudi university doesn’t allow women in its engineering courses. That doesn’t sit well with Cal Poly students, who circulated a petition demanding further discussion.
The world has also been listening, and they haven’t said “no”… they’ve said “HELL NO!” Here’s what others are saying!
3/13/08 — NPR’s Calif report that has a 5 minute segment (really good and wraps up with Stanford’s Hoover Institution Senior Fellow Dr. Charles Hill who collapses Provost Durgin’s propositions in the concluding analysis.
Minding the Campus– American Campuses in the Mid-East:not for everyone.
03/13/08 –“U.S. universities pride themselves on their tolerance – religious, ethnic, gender-based, sexual orientation-based, whatever. But when it comes to lucrative consulting fees for partnering with universities in Mideastern countries where none of the above categories of toleration seems to exist, the campus open-mindedness apparently evaporates, and a strange variety of mulitculturalism takes over.”
Other print media has also been very explicit on their objections to the deal:
Bill Morem’s “the Devil is in the Details!” Don’t forget to check out all the comments.. locals are not happy, either!
Fresno Bee “stirring passions in treatment of women”
MSNBC “women get the cold shoulder”
… uncoveredslo.com the folks who first broke the deal on the news locally!
Cal Poly students Recent Protest at the Impromtu Senate Meeting with Warren Baker
News From England on the Saudis. CLICK Do we really want to be them?
The only question remains: where do you stand?
Roger Freberg
PS. Want more fun? Check out what you local campus folks make as a ‘base salary’ !
for example: Dean Mohammad Noori $ 213,036.00
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