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| Kay is pictured during a school visit as part of her consulting visit to the University of Kuwait. |
KAY IN KUWAIT
Special education professor Kay Hegler had just two weeks to prepare for a consulting trip to the University of Kuwait. But she didn't hesitate to accept the invitation to travel to the culturally rich Arab emirate bordered by Saudi Arabia and Iraq.
In her 18th year as a consultant for the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), Hegler traveled to Kuwait in March 2008 with fellow consultant Dr. Jerry Bailey of the University of Kansas. The two provided recommendations as the University prepared for a NCATE review and to seek accreditation. Located in Kuwait City, the urban university includes 14 colleges offering programs in sciences and humanities at the undergraduate, graduate and doctoral levels.
The trip offered a glimpse into a different world, with both similarities and vast differences from the United States. She found in her days as a consultant that higher education has a universal language. "Higher education has similar questions and issues wherever you are." Yet in the evenings, she stayed in a hotel with separate meeting rooms for Muslim men.
"The trip did influence my thoughts on Muslims and world religions," Hegler said. The biggest cultural differences she noted were dress, gender separation and privilege for Kuwaiti nationals. Clothing covered arms and legs and most Kuwaiti women wore a scarf around the neck and black coats to show modesty. Gender separation was evident, including the State of Kuwait's requirement that the University offer gender separate classes. Privilege for Kuwaiti nationals was everywhere, she said. Non-Kuwaiti nationals provide much of the service work, have less desirable housing and earn minimal wages in contrast to nationals.
She also found that American higher education is held in esteem. She saw a world map depicting where faculty completed degrees, and America was oversized to emphasize how many attained degrees there. "I realized how higher education affects world perceptions of the U.S. They recognize the U.S. as the gold standard."
Kuwait was among the most educational of Hegler's consulting-based trips. "The modern city and rural desert landscape provide a unique setting for cultures to retain their strengths while adapting to contemporary technology, travel, and exchange of ideas," she said.
Plus she had a chance to take part in a favorite hobby-scuba diving. Through a cousin of a University staff member, she was able to dive into the 58-degree water of the Arabian Gulf with three members of the Kuwaiti Dive Club. It is a cherished memory, along with the praise she heard for the American soldiers who ended the Iraqi occupation in 1990. "Most Kuwaitis I was with consider Americans liberators," she said.