Thanks to a partnership with the new University of Nizwa in Oman, Oregon State University students and faculty can look forward to exchange opportunities in this Middle Eastern country as early as next fall.

Neil Forsberg, OSU professor of animal sciences, and Mark Lusk, director of international education and outreach, initiated the agreement in 2004.

OSU will help Nizwa develop its curriculum, provide English language instruction, and organize student and faculty exchanges.

“Oman is an ally for the U.S. in a part of the world where we don’t have very many friends,” Lusk said.

He hopes that this arrangement will further the goodwill these two countries share, give the OSU community the chance to meet more people from the Middle East, and provide an excellent education for the Omani people.

The University of Nizwa admitted its first class of 1,200 students in fall 2004. There are about 1,300 students are now enrolled, 90 percent of them are women.

In the next two years, Nizwa will begin construction of a campus of its own. Classes are temporarily headquartered in a converted school building, but students still have access to high-tech resources.

“It’s wireless. It’s surprising because you go to the middle of the desert, and it’s this wireless oasis,” Forsberg said.

The university will emphasize agriculture, ecology, anthropology, education and physical sciences.

Lusk said educating the Omani people is key to what he calls the country’s “Omanization.”

Rather than rely on expatriates to fill top jobs, the Sultan of Oman wants to train the country’s own intellectuals for these leadership positions.

“That struck me as an opportunity for Oregon State to help a country that’s in the process of expanding its human capital,” Lusk said.

Forsberg first traveled to Oman in 1998. He spent two years there teaching in the department of animal and veterinary sciences at Sultan Qaboos University.

He recalled being struck by the juxtaposition of primitive and cosmopolitan lifestyles he encountered.

Forsberg said he could stand in a cosmopolitan city with modern conveniences, then travel a short distance and find himself in a tribal village.

Lusk made his first trip to Oman in December.

Forsberg and Lusk, along with several other OSU faculty members, will travel again to Oman in April to meet with Ahmed Al-Rawahi, president of the University of Nizwa.

Together they’ll identify the faculty positions that need to be filled, then recruit OSU employees interested in a Middle Eastern exchange.

Lusk said things happen very quickly in Oman, because the country has low labor costs, lots of wealth and resources, and hardly any bureaucracy. He expects within 10 years the University of Nizwa’s new campus will be completed, and enrollment could grow to 15,000.

Mary Ann Albright covers higher education. She can be reached at maryann.albright@lee.net or 758-9518.