Saudi Arabian women are learning leadership skills in traditionally male-dominated fields at a new, innovative small women's college in Jidda, Saudi Arabia, according to a recent Library talk on the status of women in private higher education in Saudi Arabia.
Asma Siddiki, the vice dean for student affairs at Effat College, in Jidda, Saudi Arabia, speaks at the Library about the status of women in higher education in her country. - Levon Avdoyan
On July 28, Asma A. Siddiki, the vice dean for student affairs at Effat College, in Jidda, gave an overview of higher education in Saudi Arabia (more than 200,000 students, of whom more than half are women, attend eight major universities and numerous other institutions of higher learning) and then focused her remarks on a new approach to education at her own Effat College.
The Library's African and Middle Eastern Division and the Embassy of Saudi Arabia sponsored Siddiki's talk at the Library.
Siddiki completed her doctoral studies at Oxford University while she was teaching there in the Department of Experimental Psychology. Her degree was in the psychology of language. After graduate school, Siddiki returned to Saudi Arabia and joined the Department of European Languages at King 'Abd al-'Aziz University. In 2003, she left that well-established public university to become part of a new and innovative institution of higher learning: Effat College, the first private college for women in Saudi Arabia, which offers courses in English.
Officially opened in 1999, the college is named for Queen Effat, whose concern for women's education in her country led to the establishment of the first girls' school, Dar al-Hanan, in Jidda, in 1955.
The number of students at Effat is small, with no more than 1,000 undergraduate women, but the focus is on developing leadership skills in traditionally male-dominated fields, such as architecture, electrical engineering, computer engineering, computer science and business administration, Siddiki said.
Effat College has developed partnerships with a number of American institutions, such as Duke University, with which it is collaborating to create the first undergraduate degree program in engineering for women in Saudi Arabia. Effat has an agreement with Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business to develop its business administration program. The college also signed an agreement with LaSalle College in Montreal, Canada, in the spring of 2005 to open a fashion design academy for women in Saudi Arabia.
Siddiki said Effat College also offers more traditional women's courses, such as kindergarten teaching, psychology and English language and translation.
Effat College offers extracurricular activities found nowhere else in Saudi Arabia. Students may join organizations such as the journalism club, the movie club, the drama and folklore club and the photography club. Women act in plays, paint, select and show movies and publish their own student magazine. They also go on trips around the country and are exposed to and participate in a number of leadership and community-service programs.
Unlike the public university system in Saudi Arabia, Effat College is based on the American eight-semester, 140-credit-hour system that includes core courses, major requirements and electives. Also unlike public universities, such as King 'Abd al-'Aziz University with more than 40,000 students, the ratio of students to teachers at Effat College is 5-to-1. Thanks to the small number of students, professors are also mentors, and the close relationship between faculty and students is similar to the Oxford University tutoring system. Students come primarily from Saudi Arabia, but also from other parts of the world. They pay tuition, and the college is now raising funds to offer scholarships and loans to deserving or needy students.
Accompanying Siddiki was Princess Maha Mishari al-Sa'ud, a member of the royal family of Saudi Arabia, who is also a practicing medical doctor. She joined Siddiki in answering questions from the audience about women's education in Saudi Arabia.
