Carnegie Mellon Qatar featured in NYTimes

Head over to NYTimes.com and check out the article on American Universities setting up international campuses. You can also send questions to CMU-Q's Dean Chuck Thorpe. Also- note the great image of Carnegie Mellon's current 'campus' on the article's front page (the student on the left is Khalid Al Sooj, a student in my CDF class). This is the inside of the LAS building in Education City- the student lounge are the yellow-colored spaces in the image (behind the students). The stairs pictured lead up to the first level (it's not the second floor- first floors are ground floors here and second floors are first floors) where administration and faculty have their offices. 

If you were to take those stairs up, veer left and keep following it around, aiming as straight as possible for another corridor or two- you end up at my office- A121, waaay in the back and right near the women's bathroom and the border with Georgetown.

There's only 3 other CMU-Q faculty over here; Silvia, an Uruguayan who teaches English (literature) and immigration studies (and sometimes Spanish-along with her Swedish but Spanish-teaching husband Eric- they just announced they are expecting in September- congrats!); Amel, who teaches writing and is the only Qatari female professor in Education City, and Darlene, a American PhD candidate who teaches English literature as well.  Our CMU-Q outpost borders Georgetown's CIRS offices- the CIRS director Mehran (Iranian) and I share a horrible sweet tooth and often exchange sweets.

My office is a decent size and has four tiny windows (at least I can see outside). It's lit with two massive overhead lights than I often leave off and only utilize my bookshelf lights. I've finally decorated with a mix of 'Advice to Sink in Slowly' prints, a Rasterbator print of Chicago, and map of Doha circa 2002. I hope to get a large push-pin board shortly so I can tack up even more visuals. My office is also often freezing despite me stacking boxes, papers, junk on top of the numerous floor vents. I often leave a sweater and a shawl in my office for such chill attacks.

Additional images of the LAS building, such as our cafeteria where I sometimes buy a complete (huge) meal for 11 QAR ($3.02 US) are viewable at this NYTimes image gallery.