ON THE CUTTING EDGE: Iraq U.
The Washington Post reports that in November University of Maryland University College became the first U.S. college to offer undergraduate and graduate-level courses to American service members in Iraq, continuing the school’s 50-year history of holding classes on military bases in Europe and Asia:
Faculty teach in Afghanistan and other potentially dangerous sites - professors have reported shots being fired at their helicopter in Afghanistan - but no one has ever been hurt, said Greg von Lehmen, acting provost for UMUC.
In Iraq, seven UMUC professors and four staff members work at two locations, with about 300 students taking accelerated college classes such as American government, math, cultural anthropology and macroeconomics. Students can earn two-year, four-year and master's degrees. The school is opening three other sites and plans to keep expanding during its five-year contract, von Lehmen said.
Even on a protected military base, college in a war zone has a makeshift, edgy feel. UMUC faculty teach wherever they can find space. At Victory, a network of bases near Baghdad International Airport that has served as the U.S. military's nerve center in Iraq since 2003, classes have been held in a tent, the back of a chapel and a conference room built in Hussein's former stable for camels and horses.
Faculty live in temporary military housing, with a chilly walk outside to the bathrooms at night. …
Despite the hardships, university officials said they had no trouble finding faculty to teach in Iraq.
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