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As scores of construction workers milled around flower beds and sidewalks, putting the finishing touches on state-of-the-art laboratories, classrooms and living facilities, the ³Ô¹Ï±¬ÁÏ in Tangier, Morocco welcomed its inaugural group of students on Friday, January 10th.

On a breezy Tangier afternoon, 23 undergraduate students made their way onto the grounds of the first American university in Morocco, which was designed by the architect Anouar Amaoui.

As the students walked through the thick iron gate, they looked on in awe of the chalky white exteriors juxtaposed against arabesque cobalt blue balconies. Undeterred by more than 20 hours of travel and the bulkiness of luggage, students clustered around tethered palm trees to snap photos outside of their new home for the semester.

Situated on the grounds of the American School of Tangier, the students are treated to balcony views dotted with swaths of city homes and stores, as the minaret of Tangier’s Mosque Mohammed V rises alongside a line of trees. Campus meals feature authentic Moroccan cuisine prepared by a local caterer and fresh, local fruit.

Academics

Academically, the inaugural semester maintains a balance between language and cultural enrichment courses and laboratory sciences.

Vice President for Global Affairs Anouar Majid, Ph.D., who oversees academic and cultural programming on campus and all ³Ô¹Ï±¬ÁÏ activities in Morocco, recruited Christina Brown, Ph.D., professor and chair of ³Ô¹Ï±¬ÁÏ’s Department of Biology, to teach two courses and act as academic advisor and liaison to students and faculty.

Majid also hired preeminent Moroccan scholars and researchers as part-time faculty to teach physics and chemistry, as well as basic Arabic and two new, innovative courses surrounding the social and historical background of Tangier and Morocco.

The courses, including science labs, enable ³Ô¹Ï±¬ÁÏ students in both the sciences and humanities to study in Tangier while still staying on track in their academic majors. The learning experiences available through faculty resources and cultural immersion are unparalleled.

In campus management, student life, and cultural affairs, VP Majid is assisted by Mourad Benkirane, Sandra Larned, and Lynnsay Maynard.

Tangier

In the days and weeks preceding the arrival of the pioneering students, at the behest of city government officials, the ³Ô¹Ï±¬ÁÏ campus saw an outpouring of additional construction workers and city beautification teams to expedite last-minute projects. 

The sweet smell of cedar planks mingled with the thunder of drills in the lecture hall, filtering outside the academic building as an assembly line of workers unloaded and distributed classroom furniture from a shipping container delivered from customs.

Tangier is embarking on a series of economic and cultural transformations. The planned expansion of the Tanger-Med port, one of the largest ports on the Mediterranean coast, is slated to cement Tangier as an economic free zone and critical player in the global export market.

The recently completed 45,000-seat soccer stadium, Grand Stade de Tanger, will serve as a host of the Clubs World Cup in late 2014 and the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations. The Instituto Cervantes, Centre Culturel Français and the American Legation are providing artistic and educational opportunities to the citizens of Tangier, through documentary film screenings and cultural literacy workshops.

As Tangier builds its reputation as an epicenter of economic and cultural development, the city has emphatically welcomed the construction and development of a prestigious American institution in its backyard.

The city of Tangier has risen up to welcome the first group of ³Ô¹Ï±¬ÁÏ students in Morocco. The addition of copious workers in a matter of days and hours ahead of the students serves a sliver of the overwhelming support consistently shown by Tangierian and Moroccan officials alike. 

Living in the heart of a unique amalgamation of Arabian, European and African identities, the students of ³Ô¹Ï±¬ÁÏ are poised to become global thinkers and participants as they formulate new thoughts and ideas about the confluence of cultures surrounding them.