UNE moves forward with Morocco campus
The University of New England is on track to open its science-focused campus in Morocco in January with a pilot group of 30 students, school President Danielle Ripich told Mainebiz Wednesday in a phone call from Tangier. The campus will be on the grounds of the American School of Tangier.
Ripich said she is trying to get Gov. Paul LePage to visit Morocco to see the broader potential for an economic alliance between Maine and the North African kingdom, adding that the manager of the port of Tangier has offered to bring the governor over.
“The port of Tangier is being expanded,” she said. “I’m trying to interest the governor in coming and looking at it.”
She pointed to similarities with the agreement for Iceland’s Eimskip to use Portland as its only U.S. port of call, saying Maine and Morocco both have shipping businesses as well as marine economies that can be explored.
Ripich told Mainebiz that the university chose Morocco partly because Anouar Majid, UNE’s associate provost for global initiatives, is Moroccan. UNE signed the agreement in April 2012.
The goal was to both give students international experience and access to American-style science courses, she said. UNE has campuses in Portland and Biddeford.
“Fewer than 1% of U.S. students study abroad because they can’t get U.S. science courses,” said Ripich. She was quoting statistics from the Institute of International Education. The new campus will house chemistry, biology and physics laboratories. The chair of UNE’s biology department will teach during the first semester.
Students planning to attend the inaugural semester will get scholarships and have no additional costs to their normal course fees, she said.
UNE also plans to host a four-day opening event starting April 22.
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