A contract long in the works between Cal Poly and Jubail University College in Saudi Arabia has come to a close, and not with the resolution many were expecting.
The contract in question would have developed a unique program in engineering education between Cal Poly’s College of Engineering and JUC, for an information exchange of sorts.
About a year and three months ago, Cal Poly officials signed their end of the contract and sent it to Saudi Arabian officials, who did not send their part back. The contract did have to go through Saudi Arabian government officials, not simply university administrators.
The deal between Cal Poly and JUC stood to bring to Cal Poly approximately $6 million over a period of five years. According to Mohammad Noori, the current dean of the College of Engineering’s, personal Web site, the collaboration was initiated by Cal Poly. (Other collaborative efforts have been underway between Cal Poly and UCSB, USC and a South Korean engineering program.)
Noori’s assistant, Jo Ernest, stated that “the agreement was not signed by all the parties,” and consequently did not come to fruition.
Dean Noori was unavailable comment on the apparent end to the collaborative effort.
Dean of Research and Graduate Programs Dr. Susan Opava said Saudi Arabian officials informed Cal Poly in June 2009 that the deal would not be going through. Opava said Cal Poly officials believed a draft of the goals of the program was ready, but after Cal Poly officials and Saudi Arabian officials went back and forth over changes in language, the outcome was not successful.
“We thought we had a draft… acceptable to them,” Opava said, though the Royal Commission (part of the Saudi Arabian government, which is the “contracting agency” of the deal, said Opava , rather than JUC itself) ultimately did not approve. The Royal Commission (of Jubail and Yunbu) returned a draft “so different from the previous version… just the reformatting alone,” Opava said. “We had to basically start from scratch.”
The Royal Commission of Jubail and Yanbu assists in city and regional planning for its specified growing industrial regions, and has been charged with that task for over three decades.
“The Royal Commission decided they couldn’t use a contract like the one they developed” for Cal Poly, Opava said.
Opava pointed out that it was not just Saudi Arabian officials who were to blame for the prolonged process. “We have to look carefully at our contribution to that delay,” she said.
The entire back-and-forth process lasted the span of about two years before the deal fell through.
The Royal Commission treated the collaboration as more of a business deal than an academic exchange, putting language into the contract which would provide for deadlines and financial penalties if Cal Poly officials did not “deliver” on promised services by a certain date.
University officials couldn’t agree to the terms, which treated the university like a private business.
The contract has been under scrutiny because of Saudi Arabian policy toward a number of groups represented on the Cal Poly campus, including women, Jewish students and GLBTQ students. Opava pointed out that in the final contract from Cal Poly to the Royal Commission, any kind of discrimination based on gender, religion and so forth was specifically outlawed.
Another bone of contention has revolved around funding and why a top-rated California public university was reaching out to assist a new program in another nation.
There are several lessons to be learned here:
1) ETHICS — Public institutions need to be held to higher standards and those who work and represent them must be beyond reproach. Our academic leadership must not fear oversight.
2)TRANSPARENCY — The CSU (including Cal Poly) must be open to the concept of full disclosure in all areas of their various dealings, because only in this way can we ensure that accountability is maintained.
3) ABOVE THE LAW? — No public institution is an island or above the law. Cal Poly must follow our laws, regulations and restrictions in all of their activities outside of the United States. It is reasonable that Cal Poly should respect the practices and customs of other countries; however, when conflict arises, Cal Poly must follow our laws, rules and regs.
4) EXTERNAL REVIEW — No project like the ill fated Jubial situation should have ever gone so far before external review…. and a real internal review. Reviews are an important way of avoiding problems just like these… thanks to Laura many years ago, Cal Poly has a system for reviewing internal student and faculty research projects involving real people (IRB — Internal Review Board)… a second pair of eyes helps keep mistakes and temptations at bay.
Lastly, I would like to thank the many whistle blowers for bringing this project to light. Maybe if we had a few more whistle blowers the last time, American Universities like Columbia wouldn\’t have done business with Nazi Germany as long as they did.
And a special thanks to the Cal Coast News for continuing to have the courage to go forth with discussions like Jubail, when others are — frankly — too compromised.
thanks to all!
Roger Freberg