Though it’s been less than three years since students arrived at UC Merced, the University of California should consider adding an 11th campus in a slightly more exotic location – the United Arab Emirates.

A growing number of top American universities have begun adding locations in emirates such as Qatar and Abu Dhabi, which boast booming economies and highly educated citizens yearning to earn American degrees. The UC’s official mission is to provide for the education of students in California, but by adding a Middle Eastern branch, the UC can become a truly global university system.

New York Times reporter Tamar Lewin said in a recent article that he regards this development as a boon for higher education. At Education City, a consortium of American universities in Doha, the capital of Qatar, students can obtain degrees from Texas A&M, Carnegie Mellon, Georgetown, Cornell, and Virginia Commonwealth universities and – beginning this fall – Northwestern.

In the most ambitious plan of expansion to the region to date, New York University is set to open “NYU Abu Dhabi” in 2010. A fully operational liberal arts campus, the university will serve 2,000 students primarily from the Middle East, south Asia and Europe.

Students in Abu Dhabi will have access to most if not all of the same resources that NYU students have on their Manhattan campus.

“The campus ... will include extensive classroom, library and information technology facilities, laboratories, academic buildings, dormitories, faculty and residential housing, student services, and athletic and performance facilities,” said NYU spokesman John Beckman in a statement.

Officials at NYU and the other universities say these centers maintain the same standard for admissions; students must submit transcripts and standardized test scores, and once students arrive, they will receive the same high level of education from faculty, who primarily originate from the U.S. universities.

There are already high numbers of Middle Eastern students yearning to earn a college education from U.S. institutions. Fourth-year mechanical engineering student Walid Ismail moved to the U.S. from Beirut, Lebanon, after graduating high school. He attended a community college in Glendale and now attends UCLA, working to finish his degree and acquire citizenship.

“Everybody in the world looks up to this education system and wants to be part of the American dream,” Ismail said. “Universities like UCLA and Berkeley are brand names and can allow you to work anywhere in the world after.”

Some American universities have distance learning centers, and the UC owns property in Washington, D.C., and in Siena, Italy. But opening another campus overseas would be a much larger – yet realistic – step toward becoming a more global university.

A campus in the UAE could prove incredibly valuable to students and faculty of the UC campuses in California. Aside from providing an education to people overseas, it could serve as a center for undergraduates to study abroad, a satellite research facility for graduate students, and a destination where professors could teach for a few years or take sabbaticals.

Though it may be difficult launching the campus, governments in the UAE seem inclined to offer assistance. For example, NYU’s president John Sexton negotiated a $50 million gift from the Abu Dhabi government to launch the new campus.

Already used to expanding its faculty and high academic standards on a large scale domestically, the UC seems poised to take advantage of such an opportunity. Unlike universities such as NYU, the UC has the resources of its many campuses: 200,000 students, 13,000 faculty members and an endowment of nearly $10 billion.

Expanding to the affluent Middle East seems to be a safe investment that would not leave the UC financially hanging. Qatar, for example, has the third-largest natural gas reserve in the world, and has been on the forefront in the search for alternative energy. The GDP rose 24 percent in 2006 alone, and the per capita income of residents is over $60,000.

The population is also growing rapidly, comprised of many expatriates flocking to the region because of financial opportunities. According to the BBC, the population of Doha rose by about 60,000 residents in just two years, making it one of the fastest growing cities in the world.

But most importantly, Qatar, Abu Dhabi and other emirate states lack the political instability and hostility toward Western culture that are found in other parts of the Middle East.

Yet the most significant criticism seems to come from those who see it as a form of intellectual imperialism – an attempt to spread American culture beyond the realm of Starbucks and McDonald’s and into classrooms, altering the foundations of learning overseas.

Others feel, however, that offering education opportunity abroad could be a more beneficial export.

For example, many states in the UAE have historically denied equal educational opportunities to women. American campuses in locations like Education City have broken barriers by providing coeducational classrooms and open discussion on cultural taboos.

Already used to serving a highly-diverse population with contrasting viewpoints, the UC could bring further valuable discussion to the region which is still respectful to most cultural norms. In a post-9/11 world where displays of military force dominate many international relations efforts by the U.S., exporting our educational system could be a valuable method of diplomacy.

With University of Texas Chancellor Mark Yudof set to become the new president of the University of California, new questions arise about the UC’s future presence overseas.

Though the University of Texas did not establish a campus in the UAE during his tenure, the number of students who study abroad from the university’s Austin flagship campus nearly doubled, making it the third-highest university for sending students overseas, after NYU and Michigan State, which are both establishing campuses in the UAE.

In planning how the UC will expand in future years, I hope Yudof and other administrators will explore ways that our large state university system can expand to become a more global institution, particularly by considering expanding to create a campus in UAE.