For the past 62 years, there has been an American campus in this city – the American School of Tangier (AST), the first such school in Morocco, offering classes K-12.
Now, with the announcement by UNE – Maine's University of New England – of plans to establish a presence at AST, there will be a college-level program with its own facilities, another first for Tangier… and for Morocco.
The event was covered in the Maine press.
There are already a number of semester abroad and language study courses for American university students in Morocco – StudyAbroad.com has a long list – but these programs use the facilities of Moroccan universities or the classrooms of organizations like AMIDEAST.
In its announcement, UNE explains why it chose to locate its program in Tangier:
We chose to start in Tangier because the city is the historic gateway to the country. It has always been home to an international contingent of painters and writers and is now rising from decades of neglect to be one of the major economic and cultural hubs of the region. The United States has a long history in Tangier, almost as old as the history of the American Republic. It boasts the first building listed on the National Register of Historic Places not located on US soil and the first and oldest American school in Morocco. By establishing a presence in Tangier, UNE expects to add a new chapter to this long history of American-Moroccan relations and cooperation.
UNE's inspiration for this and other international ventures is its energetic Associate Provost for Global Initiatives, Dr. Anouar Majid, who spoke at TALIM last March. So hats off to UNE and AST for this inspired collaboration, and for the boost to cooperation in higher education between Morocco and the United States.
Gerald Loftus
