August 3, 2009

Reforms to Women's Education Make Slow Progress in Saudi Arabia

Saudi Universities Reach Toward Equality for Women RGB1

Photographs by Omar Salem, AFP, for The Chronicle

Effat U.'s experience in broadening opportunities for its students shows that change is possible in Saudi society, but it is likely to be incremental. The small, private, elite women's college has a degree of social elasticity not common on other Saudi campuses.

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close Saudi Universities Reach Toward Equality for Women RGB1

Photographs by Omar Salem, AFP, for The Chronicle

Effat U.'s experience in broadening opportunities for its students shows that change is possible in Saudi society, but it is likely to be incremental. The small, private, elite women's college has a degree of social elasticity not common on other Saudi campuses.

By Andrew Mills

Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

It's a stifling evening in mid-June, and the families of this year's graduates file into the auditorium of Effat University, a compact private college for women in this city on the shores of the Red Sea.

Fathers and brothers, wearing the white, floor-length dishdasha most Saudi men favor, are seated to the left of the podium in a cordoned-off section for men. Across the aisle, hundreds of mothers and sisters take their seats, clad from head to toe in black

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