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D o H a D i a r y

in a perfecT world, every child woUld have The same op-

porTUniTies To develop Their skills and apTiTUde. The

ones who wanTed iT The mosT woUld Thrive and realise

Their poTenTial, becoming experTs in Their chosen fields,

and Those who were lefT behind woUld have no excUses.

D o H a D i a r y

wo kids are called Assad and Ahmed. Assad

was brought up by wealthy parents in an a-uent area o town. He was spoiled with

private education, personal tutorials and

the best resources to learn. He perormed

moderately well in school, randomly an-

nounced that he wanted to become a jour-

nalist and was accepted to a private uni-

versity. Ahmed comes rom a lower-class

background. His ather died when he was

young and his requirement to help out

domestically pushed him to do some ca-

sual work at a local newspaper ater school,

where the editor allowed him to write brie

sports reports. He developed his inherent

air or the Arabic language which was no-

ticed in his test scores at school. Howeverhe didnt perorm well enough overall to

qualiy or third-level education and this

budding talent ell through the cracks in the

system. Who would you see as having the

brighter potential as a journalist?

Morton Schapiro, the president o North-

western University (NU), was in Qatar re-

cently to honour the rst batch o journal-

ism graduates on their campus at Education

City. Graduates whom the Dean and CEO o

NU-Qatar, Everette E Dennis recently de-

scribed as a diverse mosaic o cultures and

true pioneers who have blazed a successul

trail or others to ollow.

College Access: Privilege or

Opportunity

The 36 graduates, who came rom 29 di-

erent countries, obviously needed a com-

bination o an intellect tailored towards

journalism and the means to pay or the

our-year liberal arts degree. NU wants to

be able to select the best and the brightest

in the world, but they must also be able to

pay or the privilege or getting such an edu-

cation. So wheres the opportunity or a boy

like Ahmed?

Schapiro, who specialises in the econom-

ics o higher education, recently penneda book called College Access: Privilege or

Opportunity, which addresses the prob-

lem o unequal educational opportunity in

the US through essays and studies detailing

the disadvantages o low-income students.

Backed by quantitative data and expert

analyses, the book highlights the underly-

ing problems while presenting opportuni-

ties or positive change. He discusses vari-

ous models colleges could use to educate

low-income students and argued that it is

imperative to give these students ull ac-

cess to high-cost colleges as well as low-cost

ones in order or the country to remainglobally competitive. What is the dierence

between opportunity and privilege?

Its a question o how wide youre going

to allocate your higher education oppor-

tunities, said Schapiro. Some countries

have a policy o only the very best and the

brightest will go to university so the other

students are attracted to more techni-

cal skills. The US in particular has always

elt that wide access is important and ac-

tually 70% o high school graduates are

enrolled in higher education somewhere

purple

pridecreating eQualopportunities

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we recognise tHat if you coMe

froM a low incoMe faMily, your

test-scores are not going to

Be HigH anD tHeres oBviously areason for tHis. you MigHt Have

to work outsiDe to supple-

Ment faMily incoMe, or BaBysit

youn ge r si Bl in gs.

D o H a D i a r y D o H a D i a r y

within one year.

You have to be willing to put your thumb

on the scale, he continued, regarding poli-cies or proportional education. You have

to be very careul how you evaluate the

academic record o an 18-year-old. It must

be based on the opportunities that this

student had to prove himsel or hersel in

high school. I we had the same standards

and test scores, everyone would be well o.

When you talk about opportunity or privi-

lege, it would be all privilege.

There are a lot o students rom up-

per income backgrounds who are brilliant

and have availed o every opportunity,

but there are more students who, i theyhad the same opportunities, would have

even better records. One o the things we

are most proud o at Northwestern is the

amount o rst generation college kids we

enroll. Theyre not going to look as good

as the more afuent students unless you

evaluate them against the context in which

they have to prove themselves thats put-

ting the thumb on the scale and we have to

adjust or the opportunities that present

themselves.

It is the highly endowed private univer-

sities, such as Harvard, Yale Stanord and

Northwestern, which are able to subsidiseeducation or students rom underprivi-

leged societies. Public universities are

there or all o course, but they tend to at-

tract students with high test-scores who in-

variably come rom more afuent amilies.

Institutions like ours have the unds to

say, Ahmed, youre a bright kid with some-

thing to oer. Your parents cant aord our

ees, but well take you on regardless, said

Schapiro. We recognise that i you come

rom a low income amily, your test-scores

are not going to be high and theres obvi-

ously a reason or this. You might have to

work outside to supplement amily income,

or babysit younger siblings.

Education City

Northwestern University has been in exis-

tence since 1851, and has dened itsel as a

centre o excellence, i you like, in many

strains o academia. Schapiro talks o pur-

ple pride and how its alumni are so proud o

their education there that they perenniallygive back in various guises. The institution

is over 150 years old, so he likes to under-

score that it takes time to create reputable

education centres, but the Education City

model is a very innovative eort.

I think Education City is working well,

said Schapiro. Its not just planting ran-

dom universities or the sake o having

universities its identiying what elds

you want represented. HH Sheikha Mozah

asked which institution is best at teaching

petroleum engineering Texas A&M. What

about media and communication journal-

ism? Well a lot o people would put North-western right up there. So part o her vision

was not just to bring any old universities

here, but the right ones.

On top o that, she didnt want a wa-

tered-down version o what was oered in

the States either she wanted a NU-Q de-

gree to be a Northwestern degree. Is there

the same literary tradition here in Qatar? I

guess not, but students here have all kinds

o talents that our US students might not

have and we are trying to breathe those tal-

ents. There are always challenges but you

have to realise that culture is important.

What you do is work on whats really great

and you try to make up or whats lacking.

he added.

Endowments

Endowments constitute a major portion o

the unding to universities. Northwestern

University, one o the most highly endowed

institutions in the US, currently has QR27

billion in store. Endowments allow univer-sities to provide better education and rely

less on tuition ees. Why do alumni eel

obliged to give back to their universities in

such large amounts?

Ive been in this business or 20 years

and I eel there are three sets o reasons or

this, explained Schapiro. Some people are

just loyal they eel like they owe their alma

mater. I graduated Kellogg School o Man-

agement and now I run this big company,

making a ortune. I never would be in this

situation i it werent or Kellogg , they say.

Secondly, these long-standing institu-

tions such as ours date back to the 19thcentury and they stand or excellence and

some people like to be associated with that.

The third reason is a shared vision, he

continued. They see us bringing western

style journalism to the Gul region, incul-

cating cultural understanding into todays

youth, and they want to support this. For

insteance, a scientist at Northwestern is

currently looking or a cure or Parkinsons

disease, trying to change the world or the

better they like to help out projects like

thise however they can

photo:peter

barreras.

morTon Schapiro

president of northwestern university