Students at Texas A&M Qatar campus speak out about its closure

TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY, Texas (KBTX) – Texas A&M University leadership held a town hall meeting Sunday, giving students at the Qatar campus a chance to hear directly from the university about that decision.

Video of the town hall wasn’t available, but a transcript of the meeting shows many questions that were raised couldn’t be answered yet. University President Mark Welsh said a lot of decisions, like what happens with new hires and admissions for the new school year, still have to be made.

President Welsh assured attendees that their priority as leadership was to ensure that everyone graduates.

However, many students are worried about their educational futures.

“If you now walk around uni, it’s really depressing,” Moustafa Faraj, President of the Student Engineers’ Council, said.

Students, faculty, and staff have voiced their frustration with the university’s decision. Khalid Al-Sada, student body president, took to the microphone after the town hall ended. Cell phone video captured some of his statement.

“For a uni that preaches integrity so much, I have seen none of that outside of this campus,” he said.

Al-Sada said that he was left with more questions than answers after the 30-minute town hall. His main concern is graduate students.

“What happens to the graduate students, some of which have a projected graduation date at in 2029, and the university is supposed to be terminated in 2028,” he said.

Faraj said that he hopes to see more transparent communication from the university as the transition moves forward.

“If you’re not there to answer the main questions, then there was no point of the town hall,” he added.

However, the four year process is still in its early stages.

But Al-Sada said the decision has put his academic future in jeopardy. The senior at the Qatar campus said that it was his dream to get his degree from Texas A&M, and until the news of its closure broke, that dream included a master’s degree.

He said that he doesn’t have many other options to continue his education in Qatar, where the other universities primarily teach in Arabic.

“It was a passion of mine. Chemistry, for a very long time. Apply that with engineering, and that’s, that’s an amazing future. What is going to happen now that it’s most likely gone? I have, I have no clue,” he said.

Texas A&M is still deciding whether or not the Qatar campus will bring in a new class of freshman, whose estimated graduation year would be 2028, for the next school year.