Tuesday, October 9, 2001

Education Meetings Postponed in Middle East By DANIEL DEL CASTILLO Throughout the Middle East, international educational meetings scheduled for this fall are being called off, as participants decide against traveling to the region. Amideast, a Washington-based nonprofit organization with field offices across North Africa and the Arab world, postponed a higher-education summit that was to have been held in Marrakesh, Morocco, two weeks from now. The summit had been designed to bring together academics and government officials from around the Arab world and the United States to discuss the effects of globalization on higher education in the region. The meeting is being rescheduled for March 2002. "People are very, very supportive of our continuing plans for the conference," says Ruth Sexton, Amideast's vice president for public relations and development. "They want the conference to go on, and they see, more than ever, the need for this kind of event that brings together a cross section of people from education, industry, and nongovernmental organizations." The summit was postponed because of general anxiety and widespread cancellations by participants from both the United States and the Middle East. "We felt we would be better served by postponing for a few months and trying to maintain the fabulous roster of speakers we have, rather than continuing with the October dates and risking even more cancellations," says Ms. Sexton. In Damascus, the American Embassy was forced to postpone a workshop on private higher education in Syria that was scheduled for this weekend. "It's been a very frustrating time," says Mark Schapiro, a cultural-affairs officer at the American Cultural Center. The workshop was to have brought together 11 delegations from American universities that are interested in establishing partnerships with Syrian universities. Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

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