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CSB President Appointed to University Board in UAE

March 23, 2006

MaryAnn Baenninger, president of the College of Saint Benedict in St. Joseph, was recently appointed to the Board of Trustees at American University of Sharjah (AUS) in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Baenninger was appointed to the board by His Highness Sheikh Dr. Sultan Bin Mohammed Al Qassimi, member of the Supreme Council of the UAE and ruler of Sharjah. AUS was founded in 1997 by His Highness, who envisioned the university as a leading educational institution in the Gulf region.

The appointment was made during the board’s latest meeting February 19 in London.

Baenninger has been engaged with issues related to higher education in the UAE since 2001. At her previous position with the Middle States Commission on Higher Education in Philadelphia – a non-governmental, peer-based membership association dedicated to educational excellence and improvement through peer evaluation and accreditation – she worked with institutions in the UAE.

Baenninger, who has devoted nearly her entire career to higher education, received her doctorate from Temple University, where she also completed her bachelor’s degree in psychology, summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa. Her career has included serving as an associate professor in the department of psychology at The College of New Jersey, Ewing, N.J., a faculty member at Philadelphia University in Philadelphia, and Washington College in Chestertown, Md.

She became the 14th president of the College of Saint Benedict on August 1, 2004.

AUS is an independent, not-for-profit coeducational institution. Although consciously based on American institutions of higher education, AUS is also expected to be thoroughly grounded in Arab culture and to be part of a larger process of the revitalization of intellectual life in the Middle East. AUS is emerging as a leading comprehensive coeducational university in the Gulf, serving students from the region and around the world.

The school is licensed in the United States by the Department of Education of the State of Delaware. It is accredited by the Commission on Higher Education of the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools. AUS is also licensed by the UAE Ministry of Education, and all undergraduate and graduate programs are recognized by the ministry and have been awarded either accreditation or accreditation-eligible status. AUS offers 20 bachelor’s degrees, 22 minors, six master’s degrees and five graduate certificate programs offered by one college and three schools: Arts and Sciences; Architecture and Design; Business and Management; and Engineering.

Sharjah is a city of learning and the arts, as confirmed by its 1998 UNESCO designation as the Cultural Capital of the Arab World. This context facilitates the university's intention to be an academic center at the intersection of ancient cultural traditions and contemporary intellectual currents. Strategically situated between the Far East and the West, Sharjah is a global trade center. It is the third largest of the seven states that form the UAE.