Excellence in Higher Education 103
How do you maintain a strong Heriot-Watt identity across different campuses, while also ensuring that the Dubai campus retains its local culture and priorities? Vanessa: Our core values - Inspire, Belong, Collaborate, Celebrate - guide everything we do, inside and outside the classroom. We are a global university with campuses in the UK, Malaysia, and Dubai, but we make sure students feel part of one community wherever they are. Each campus has its own identity, yet that shared sense of belonging unites us. The James Watt building is an impressive addition at Dubai Knowledge Park. Can you highlight some of the most exciting features? Vanessa: We have a 220-seater fantastic auditorium, which is used for students to study within, but also for commercial activities. So if we want to hold conferences, for example, we now have a purpose-built space for that particular activity. It has a green room attached to it and is equipped with extensive technology that integrates the lighting and sound. So it’s like a professional production organisation. Staff and students can utilise that to its full potential.
Other areas of this building include the extra space for students, particularly in terms of their recreational activities, as students mustn’t be just here to study. They also need some time to liaise with each other, hold their meetings, and build their own communities while living here. The James Watt building reflects the core essence of our original main building, but it’s also about lessons learned and what we did in the old building that we can improve on for the sake of students and staff here. So, it’s more collegiate and holistic as we move through the building. In what ways do these new developments reflect Heriot-Watt’s role in advancing higher education in the UAE? Vanessa: I think it helps in terms of showcasing what we can do inside and outside the classroom, but I think it also puts a stand forward that we are not prepared to take anything less than the best for our students. The community in which they thrive, in which they live, and in which they study should be of the highest value and the highest quality.
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