Ballad of the Old Cafés

The Gulf states have been happy to take advantage of this collapse. But a rearguard of academics contends that the new schools there are academic Disneylands that can't eclipse the old centers. "Intellectuals and academics don't want to live in a mall," says Osama El-Ghazali Harb, the Egyptian former head of the Arab Association of Political Scientists. "Science is more than labs. It's the people, it's the environment."

Egypt has even started fighting back, by trying to recruit U.S. universities to open campuses on its soil, too. But it's had relatively little success. "Do you really expect us to open a campus in a country that could be run by the Muslim Brotherhood in a few years?" said one high-ranking NYU official involved in the school's search for a Middle East campus.

Virtually everywhere, money is trumping tradition. Mariet Westermann, a former director of NYU's Institute of Fine Arts who was recently appointed vice chancellor of the university's Abu Dhabi campus, says that "historically, the smart use of financial resources has been a great stimulus to the arts. When I think about the Gulf's resources and its willingness to deploy them in a certain way, I can't help but get excited."

Still, concerns linger. Though many Gulf states are more liberal than their neighbors, homosexuality is still banned and Israelis are forbidden, for example. "It's always important to understand whom you are partnering with," says Andrew M. Fleischmann, a Connecticut legislator who led an official inquiry into the University of Connecticut's now stalled project in Dubai.

Yet the emirates have undeniable advantages. "If you want to look at the future of the region, you have to go to the Gulf," says Charles E. Thorpe, dean of Carnegie Mellon's branch in Qatar.

The emirates are unapologetic about their efforts. Zaki Nusseibeh, deputy chair of the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage, says that "the Arab world has to accept that its future lies in the Gulf." Good news for the oil-rich new kids on the block—but real trouble for their resource-deprived older cousins.

© 2008