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The Daily Tar Heel

Officials Return From Qatar

The trip, which Provost Robert Shelton described as occurring "on fairly short notice," was the first opportunity for many faculty members to take an in-depth look at the small Middle Eastern nation where UNC is considering establishing a satellite business school.

The proposal, which came about when the wife of Qatar's ruling emir offered UNC an undisclosed amount of money to launch the new campus, has met with some criticism from faculty members who are concerned about potential safety and freedom of expression issues.

"We've been in discussion about this program for quite some time, and the logical next step was to give more faculty the chance to go over there to fact-find," Shelton said.

Chancellor James Moeser, several administrators, four members of the Board of Trustees and more than 50 faculty members from the Kenan-Flagler Business School and the College of Arts and Sciences, participated in the trip, which was paid for by the Qatari organizers of the program. "The emir was very gracious and sent a plane," Shelton said.

Shelton said that although he was not sure of the specific schedule, he hoped that the delegation in Qatar would be able to gather information to help officials decide whether UNC should proceed with the Qatari school. "They probably will spend as much time as they can walking around, getting a feel for the country and what it would be like to live there and work there for a semester," he said.

But some members of student government said they were unhappy they had not been included on the trip.

Student Body Vice President Rudy Kleysteuber said he was disappointed that administrators told him they were primarily concerned with faculty input at this point in the process.

"When student government learned of this trip, the first thing we did was to ask how many students were going," Kleysteuber said. "We requested that the student body president or a representative from (The Daily Tar Heel) should go, and the administration responded that they believed student involvement was inappropriate at this point."

But Shelton said the administration is making efforts to include a variety of views and concerns, including an electronic poll conducted by administrators to gauge faculty opinion.

In the meantime, Moeser will begin the process of sifting through direct impressions from the faculty -- as soon as the delegates recover from their trip to the Middle East. Shelton said, "They're going to be very tired when they get back."

The University Editor can be reached at udesk@unc.edu.

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