I was also impressed to see Effat graduating a quarter of its students from its College of Engineering, which it established in partnership with Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering. When I first visited Effat seven years ago, it was still in the early stages of establishing engineering as a degree, a first for women in Saudi Arabia. In my book Paradise Beneath Her Feet: How Women are Transforming the Middle East, I describe the challenges that Effat faced in introducing engineering for women. As Dr. Haifa Jamal al-Lail, the president of Effat explained then, “Those in the business community said to us, ‘Why teach the girls engineering? We won’t hire them.’ Others who were more sympathetic to our goal said, ‘Why don’t you call it something else, so people aren’t so against it?’ But I like the word engineering – I’m not hiding anything!” Her gamble paid off, and today Effat’s engineering graduates are enrolled in top post-graduate programs around the world and are sought-after employees in the Kingdom.
