| Nelson Chairs Accreditation Team to University of Iraq |
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MICUA Matters Fall 2010
Shortly before the end of the spring semester in Annapolis, St. John's College President Christopher Nelson and his wife, Joyce Olin, flew to Iraq for a visit to the American University of Iraq-Sulaimani. It was the final step in the University's quest for accreditation from the American Association of Liberal Education (AALE), which was granted in July. President Nelson chaired the AALE's site visit team, and he was impressed by the steps the University has taken to provide professional training while grounding students in the liberal arts.
While students at the University can earn degrees in business, engineering, information technology, and other traditional majors, students must earn half their credits in liberal studies. On the first evening of their visit, the team dined with Barham Salih, the Prime Minister of Kurdistan, who acknowledged that young people in Iraq seek professional degrees to help rebuild their country. "But he said that this would never be enough to build a free and prosperous Iraq, one that had been under totalitarian rule for too long," Nelson said. "Even good workforce training can be a servile occupation, while only students educated in the arts of freedom, practiced in thinking for themselves, learning the skills that would allow them to enter into discourse with the world on their own terms, would be fit for democracy, fit for self governance."
At a time when many in U.S. higher education are abandoning liberal arts in favor of workforce training, Nelson said, the American University of Iraq serves as inspiration. "The world will always drive us to specializations and to careers that are highly focused on just a part of the human experience. Better to join that world, prepared with an education that allows us to have some idea of the whole project we call humanity." |
The team flew into Erbil International Airport on April 30, and on the way to Sulaimani, they saw signs of both the devastation the region saw under Saddam Hussein in the 1990s and of rebuilding as the relatively peaceful region slowly recovers. Over four days, they visited the University's temporary facility (30 minutes away from the permanent campus, which is still under construction), visited classes, interviewed students and faculty members, and observed a student debate. The University's outgoing provost, John Agresto, is a former president of St. John's Santa Fe campus.
President Nelson was impressed by the mission of the University and by the dedication of its leaders, but he was most encouraged by the spirit of the students. "In each class I visited, every one of the 14 students spoke," he said. "They were encouraged to ask questions of the teacher and of each other. They gave oral presentations to the class, took questions, and received comments well. Outside of class they were passionate in their desire to learn more, saying that they had never had such an experience, being given the freedom to make their education their own, asking the questions that were theirs rather than their school master's."