The University of Southern California is working with the American University in Dubai to develop the curriculum of a new school of communications that’s set to open there this fall, Gulf News reports.

The Mohammad bin Rashid Media College will begin accepting students in September to its bachelor-of-media-arts program, which will focus on training students to become professional journalists. The campus is located in the United Arab Emirates.

“There is a shortage of professional Arab journalists in the U.A.E. and the region, so it is important to establish appropriate curricula that teach the necessary skills needed to practice this profession, taking into consideration the language and culture of the region,” Jihad Nader, provost and chief academic officer at the university, told the newspaper.

Gulf News reports that faculty members teaching in Dubai will be trained at Southern Cal’s Annenberg School for Communication, which will also oversee a yearly peer review of the curriculum. What’s more, leaders at the American University in Dubai hope that exchange programs and research partnerships will develop between the two schools.

Reached by telephone, Geoffrey Baum, assistant dean of public affairs at the Annenberg School, said that the partnership was in a very early stage and that details would be hammered out this fall, when administrators from Annenberg visit Dubai.

Annenberg is the second American journalism school to build a presence in the Persian Gulf region. Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism is set to open a branch campus in Qatar this September. Medill hopes to duplicate Northwestern’s program in Illinois, with faculty members teaching the same curriculum as is used on its home campus. —Andrew Mills