Friday, October 10, 2003

By Bill Schackner, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

As director of the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, one of the nation's top campuses for that field, Chuck Thorpe has a job that would seem hard to leave.

But he soon may do just that, swapping his coveted campus post for a place in the desert as head of a new branch that Carnegie Mellon is negotiating to create in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar.

A foundation in the oil-rich nation has been offering big money to entice elite American universities -- Carnegie Mellon among them -- to establish programs for citizens in that country. And school leaders have decided that if the Carnegie Mellon branch materializes, they want Thorpe to head it, Provost Mark Kamlet confirmed yesterday.

Kamlet said the school hopes to strike a deal by year's end so that by fall 2004 the first 50 or so undergraduates working toward computer science and business degrees can enroll. The Qatar Foundation, headed by Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser Al Missned, the wife of that nation's ruler, has said it will absorb costs to establish the branch.

Thorpe said yesterday he's excited about creating a new academic program and immersing his children in a different culture. But it also will be hard to leave the directorship of an institute he has been involved with since its earliest day. He arrived at Carnegie Mellon as a graduate student more than two decades ago.

"This has been my home," said Thorpe, 46. "I have the world's best job right now. The Robotics Institute is a cool place to be that continues to grow, continues to thrive, continues to do fascinating things."

A branch in Qatar would dovetail with a strategic push by Carnegie Mellon over the past several years to increase its international presence.

"It's a critical time and a very good time to be doing this," Thorpe said. "The Muslim world is changing and is watching the United States."

That said, it will not be the simplest spot for a university to expand. While some on campus view the endeavor with excitement, others are wary.

Even in a Muslim state so progressive that women run for office, those arriving from Oakland to teach or study would encounter a culture vastly different from theirs. And the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and war in Iraq have symbolized to some the potential risks.

Kamlet said the university has reached out to those with such concerns and others who might wonder if the venture would detract from affairs on the main Pittsburgh campus. He said it would not, and Thorpe said his time in that nation left him impressed with the people and confident of the safety.

"On the first trip that I took to Qatar, my wife was with me. We walked the streets and felt extremely safe," he said. "The university has done a very thorough job of thinking about security issues and every account that we have come up with says that this is a very safe place."

Cornell University now operates a medical college in the sprawling complex named Education City, which is being developed outside the capital Doha. Virginia Commonwealth University offers a fashion and interior design program for Qatari women, and Texas A&M University offers a program in petroleum engineering, Kamlet said.

The complex is intended to serve students from kindergarten through postgraduate studies.

Financial aspects of the deal are still being worked out. In the case of Cornell, the Qatar Foundation committed $750 million toward costs of the medical college.

Carnegie Mellon has embarked on various initiatives and offerings in spots like England, Germany, Greece, Singapore and Taiwan. Of late, the Qatar branch has evoked a range of reactions on campus, said Peggy Knapp, professor of English and chairwoman of the faculty senate.

Some see it as a chance to do good in Qatar and in the region while helping to internationalize the education available to students in Pittsburgh. Others note the risks in that part of the world and wonder if Carnegie Mellon might be doing the bidding of the current administration in Washington by helping to Americanize the Middle East.

"Certainly there are people who favor this very strongly and those who don't," Knapp said of the Qatar plan. "What the preponderance would be I don't know."

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