Cesar Malavé
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 Dr.
Malavé is a Professor of Industrial Engineering and Assistant
Dean for International Programs at Texas A&M. He earned a B.S.
in Chemical Engineering and a M.S. in Operations Research from
the Georgia Institute of Technology. He then obtained a Ph.D. in
Industrial Engineering from the University of South Florida in
Tampa. He has been with Texas A&M since 1987. Dr. Malavé’s
research interests are in the area of manufacturing systems
analysis and planning. He teaches graduate courses and conducts
research in the area of manufacturing systems modeling and
control. At the undergraduate level, Dr. Malavé has taught the
freshman introductory course in fundamentals of engineering,
engineering economy, manufacturing operations analysis, and
robotics. He is also the TAMU campus coordinator for the NSF
sponsored Foundation Coalition. The Foundation Coalition is one
of the engineering education coalitions dedicated to the
innovation of undergraduate education. The main thrusts of the
Foundation Coalition are integration of subject matter,
active/collaborative learning, teaming, and continuous
improvement through assessment and evaluation. Dr Malavé is a
member of ASEE and IIE. In his capacity as Assistant Dean for
International Programs in the Dwight Look College of
Engineering, Dr. Malavé leads the Study Abroad Programs,
international agreements and newly established Qatar campus.
César Malavé, Ph.D., P.E.
Assistant Dean for International Programs
Engineering Academic Program Office
Professor, Department of Industrial Engineering
Texas A&M University
College Station, Texas 77843-3136
Phone: (979) 458-2693
Fax: (979) 847-8654
Email: malave@tamu.edu
Abstract:
In May of 2003, Texas A&M University signed an
agreement with the Qatar Foundation to bring an engineering
school to Education City, Qatar’s new vision of a
multi-institutional and integrated university. Texas A&M
University began classes in September of that same year, leaving
four months to recruit students, staff, and faculty and
establish a learning environment in which an engineering
curriculum could be delivered. This paper will discuss the
multiple hurdles that TAMU had to overcome in order to create
Texas A&M University at Qatar, a branch campus of TAMU dedicated
to delivering a ‘western’ engineering curriculum to students in
and from the Middle East.
Texas A&M University at Qatar is a co-educational engineering
school that currently offers four degrees: electrical,
mechanical, chemical, and petroleum. A novel concept in Qatar is
males and females attend classes together and work along side
one another on projects. The chief architects of TAMUQ decided
that they would not follow the model of other universities
operating in the Middle East whereby they hired educational
mercenaries with little or no ties to the main campus to teach
their classes. Instead, the TAMUQ has faculty from the TAMU
campus rotating to Qatar for one- or two-year assignments to
ensure that the curriculum delivered to the students in Qatar is
exactly the same as it is in Texas. Thus, the degree and diploma
that students earn at TAMUQ will look exactly like those earned
by their Texas counterparts.
Through the hard work of people in Texas and in Qatar, TAMUQ was
able to meet its deadline and began class on September 7, 2003
with 28 students (15 females and 13 males). The first semester
of courses were designed to achieve two goals: (1) assess the
academic ability of mostly Arabic-speaking students whose
classes would be taught exclusively in English (the
international language of engineering); and (2) prepare students
who have received most of their schooling in math and the
sciences to succeed in all parts of the engineering curriculum
which includes a strong liberal arts component. The first
semester’s courses included mathematics classes, a computer
science class, an introductory engineering class, and liberal
arts classes.
Half-way through the first semester it became evident that at
least half of the students at TAMUQ were indeed capable of
taking a full engineering load, so the math courses were
revamped in order to increase instruction. After the first
semester, two different tracks were created, one for the
students who were clearly mastering the current material and
another track for those students who still required additional
developmental training.
This paper will discuss the variety of issues faced while trying
to create a university from scratch in a Middle Eastern country.
This paper will also discuss student performance at TAMUQ in
terms of where the students were before classes began and where
they stand now, at the end of their first year of studies.
Finally, this paper will present lessons that we have learned
from our first year.
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