The news that UWaterloo was closing down its Dubai campus came as a surprise to most students. Although students knew that low enrolment in the programs offered there was a problem, no one expected to hear that the university’s Board of Governors was going recommend the re-consolidation of the UAE campus to the main campus.
From a student perspective, the development of the Dubai initiative had been great. Enrolment had appeared to be on the rise: from the 20 or so students who started in 2009 to the 140 students who enrolled this past year, there had been a lot of growth (but it certainly didn’t match the expected 500 students in the university’s business plan). The quality of teaching offered at the Dubai campus had been on par with the quality on campus as local engineering profs travelled back and forth to the campus to teach. Despite concerns about class sizes getting too big when the UAE students joined their peers on the main campus, the transition to Waterloo had also been smooth with students joining their cohorts in Chemical and Civil Engineering in January 2012. Gordon Lewis, of the 2014 Chemical Engineering class commented, “Opening this satellite campus meant providing opportunities to more students in terms of education and co-op experience in the Middle East”. Even main campus students were using the opportunity to travel to Dubai both for co-op terms and for school to broaden their horizons.
The UAE students here on campus were disappointed to hear of the closure of the Dubai program. Lewis stated “It is regretful to hear that the journey ended in its premature period. Realizing the fact that starting a new project is never smooth sailing, I am sure the decision to close the campus has impacted, not just the current students but also the graduated students from there.” The closure also means that a double cohort of students will be coming to the main campus. This will certainly have an impact on the UAE students who will have to adapt to Canada earlier than expected.
Now that the dream of opening a campus internationally has failed, what has UWaterloo learned? Many American, and even some Canadian, universities have successfully opened and operated campuses internationally; for instance, Queen’s University has its Herstmonceux Castle in Southern England. Despite UWaterloo’s entrepreneurial spirit, our international campus failed. For students, it means that we will no longer have the opportunities to live, study, and work in Dubai. It will also decreases the presence of international students on our campus and make it more difficult to attract international students from the UAE region to our campus.
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