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The Ariel University (Template:Lang-he) previously known as the Ariel University Center of Samaria, is a university located in the Israeli settlement of Ariel in the West Bank. Before becoming a university, it was the largest Israeli public college.

The University was founded in 1982 to serve as a regional branch of Bar-Ilan University. Originally located in the settlement of Kedumim, it moved to Ariel in order to expand. Its association with Bar-Ilan University lapsed in the 2004–05 academic year with the school administration's decision to become independent and pursue university status. the university has 26 departments for BA, MA, BSc and B.Arch studies, in three faculties and three schools. In 2011, the university has 14,000 students, with a branch in Tel Aviv. All degrees are recognized by the Council for Higher Education in Israel.

The Ariel University cooperates with international organizations and universities all over the world. The college and its staff have been boycotted, both in Israel and overseas, for its location beyond the Green Line in the Palestinian territories.

On 17 July 2012, the Council for Higher Education in Judea and Samaria passed a resolution to grant the institution full university status. This move was praised by the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Minister of Education Gideon Saar, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and some Knesset members and Nobel Prize in Economics winning mathematician Robert Aumann. The Council of Presidents of Israeli Universities condemned the move.

University status

In 2005, the Israeli government voted to support upgrading the College to university status. . The change of status was not immediate since the decision only allowed the College to apply for revision by the Council for Higher Education in Israel, which must ultimately approve the change. University status is an issue of prestige, increased government funding for research, as well as the ability to issue doctorate degrees.

In July 2006 the Council for Higher Education rejected the proposal (which had been paired with an initiative by Shimon Peres to unite several regional colleges in the Galilee into one umbrella university). The Council accepted the conclusion of a committee it had itself set up that decided that no new university would be established in Israel in the next five years. The committee did not discuss, or perhaps avoided the discussion of, the merits or shortcomings of the two initiatives. Subsequently, criticism was directed at the Council for ignoring the decision of the government.

Upgrading the Center to university status, which was seen as a victory for the settler movement, was controversial. Settlements such as Ariel are considered illegal under international law by the international community, and Palestinians see them as an obstacle to peace, but the Israeli government disputes this.

In August 2007, prior to achieving official university status, the college was renamed the "Ariel University Center of Samaria." Although Prime Minister Ehud Olmert endorsed the change, both Minister of Education Yuli Tamir and the Council for Higher Education vowed to block it, with the latter announcing in 2008 that they would not recognise degrees awarded by the college. The name change was recognised in 2010, although the college remained without university accreditation until it was approved in July 2012.

On December 24, 2012 Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak ordered the Central Command to officially recognize Ariel University as a fully accredited university.

Enrollment

Current enrollment at the university is about 14,000, including secular and orthodox Jewish, including the largest number of Ethiopian-born students in any Israeli university, Arab, and Circassian Israeli students. As of 2011 there are 600 Israeli Arab students. The Center is open to all Israeli citizens, including Arabs.

Peace conference

In December 2011 the Ariel University Center of Samaria held a special conference entitled “Best Plans for a Peaceful Israel/Palestine”, jointly with the Free Muslim Coalition Against Terrorism and the organization's president Kamal Nawash to promote solutions to end the Arab-Israeli conflict. The conference was attended by Israeli Arabs, Israeli Jews and Palestinians from the PA-controlled areas of the West Bank.

The organizer of the event, Israeli Doron Tzur, said he wanted to "create a reality where Israelis and Palestinians participate in presenting their own ideas of peace. a more detailed plan, one that is transparent, that everyone can explore, ask questions and expect a response. The way to build confidence, create some sort of agreement, where a majority of both nations agree; let's do a referendum, let's make it a reality."

Visiting lecturers

AUC hosts visiting lecturers from universities around the world. In 2010 University of Hartford communications professor Don Ellis taught the course "Communication Issues and Political Conflict." He said: "My only goal is to help them improve their critical thinking skills. I don't expect that either side will acknowledge the other side as being right." British professor Geoffrey Alderman is also a guest lecturer at Ariel University, and has said that those British members of parliament who oppose the university, did so because the university “is Jewish. If it was a Palestinian university they wouldn’t object. For heaven’s sake, this is an educational establishment with many Palestinian as well as Jewish students.”

Professor Hilde Leone of Leibniz University, Hanover, was a guest lecturer at the university's school of architecture, speaking about "Between Vision and Reality."

International cooperation and programs

The Ariel University Center is a member of the International Association of Universities (IAU).

Ariel University Center has signed academic cooperation agreements with over 51 higher education institutions around the world, including the United States, Russia, France, Germany, Brazil, Portugal, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Argentina, Turkey, Poland, Ukraine, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Taiwan and Armenia. There is a partnership between the University of Toronto and the Ariel University on the Masters degree in Business Administration (MBA).

In 2008 Global Association of Risk Professionals established a branch in the University Center which conducts operator courses and international conferences in university center.

The center is recognized as a Microsoft IT Academy and authorized to make certification exams for Microsoft Network Administration. In addition, the Center has a unique qualification: Gold CPLS: Certified Partner for Learning Solutions.

In 2011 Ariel University Center jointly with Ural Federal University signed a cooperation agreement with the Skolkovo innovation center known as "Silicon Valley" in Russia. Following this agreement, will be formed the "center of Israel – Scolkovo" (Israel Skolkovo Gateway), to provide Israeli companies with access to capital resources and manpower. In addition, the Center serves as a representative of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities cooperation with the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Ariel University Center participates in the project Masa Israel Journey in which Jewish students all over the world come for the time between a semester to a year study in Ariel, about 30% of students coming to study in Ariel immigrate to Israel at the end of the project.

In August 2011, the university's technology transfer company was to sign a partnership agreement with Moscow's Skolkovo innovation center. It was intended to provide Israeli start-ups with access to Russian funding established by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, and create Skolkovo Gateway Israel, a center formed to connect to Russia's Silicon Valley.

Academic boycotts

In early 2011, 145 Israeli academics announced they were boycotting the university to protest Israeli settlement expansion. They wrote in their petition, "Ariel is not part of the sovereign territory of Israel, and we therefore cannot be required to go there." This came after the Spanish Housing Ministry disqualified the university from taking part in an international architectural competition in 2009. The Spanish government explained that their decision to ban the university was a result of it being located in Israeli-occupied territories. The Anti-Defamation League asked the Spanish Government and the US Department of Energy to overturn the disqualification of Israeli researchers from an international solar energy competition in Madrid. Abraham H. Foxman, ADL’s national director, called the move "unwarranted, biased and clearly discriminatory," and said it introduced politics "into an important scientific competition where politics has no place." The British Association of University Teachers (AUT) also boycotted Bar-Ilan University in April 2005 for its academic links with the college. The boycott was rescinded in May 2005.

Faculties and departments

• Architecture
• Faculty of Engineering
  • Civil Engineering
  • Electrical Engineering & Electronics, including advanced degrees
  • Chemical Engineering in Biotechnology and Chemical Engineering and Materials, including advanced degrees
  • Mechanical Engineering – Mechatronics
  • Industrial Engineering & Management
  • General Engineering
• Faculty of Natural Sciences
  • Molecular Biology
  • Biological Chemistry
  • Physics
  • Computer Science & Mathematics
  • Medical Physics & Imaging
• School of Health Sciences
  • Health Management
  • Physiotherapy
  • Nutrition
  • Communications Disorders
• Faculty of Social Sciences & Humanities
  • Economics
  • Economics & Business Management
  • Master of Business Administration
  • Behavioral Sciences
  • Psychology
  • Sociology and Anthropology
  • School of Social Work, including advanced degrees
  • Criminology
  • Political Science
  • Israel & Middle Eastern Studies
  • Israel Heritage
  • Multidisciplinary Studies (Humanities)
• School of Communications
  • Real Estate Assessment (diploma)

Research institutes

• Center for Radiation Sources and Applications (FEL)
• Integrative Brain Science Center-Ariel (IBSCA)
• Materials Research Center
• Center for Robotics Research and Applications
• Samaria & Jordan Valley Regional R&D Center
• Homeland Security R&D Center
• Israel National Strategic Assessment Center
• Mass Media Research Center
• Ariel Research Center for Defense and Communication (ARCDC)
• Institute for the Study of New Media, Politics and Society
• Center for Law and Mass Media
• kinematics and computational geometry (KCG) multidisciplinary laboratory
• Cluster computation system
• Human Factors Engineering Laboratory
• Sheri and Arnold Schlesinger Medical Radiation Protection, Training, Information and Research Center
• Therapeutic and Educational Social Robotics Lab ( TESRL)

Notable faculty

• Mel Alexenberg, artist
• Edward Bormashenko, Head of the Laboratory of Polymers
• Yigal Cohen-Orgad (born 1937), former Israeli Minister of Finance; Chancellor of Ariel University Center of Samaria
• Dani Dayan (born 1955), Chairman of the Yesha Council and lecturer at Ariel
• Israel Hanukoglu, Professor of biochemistry and molecular biology and former Science and Technology Adviser to the Prime Minister of Israel
• Ram Karmi (born 1931), architect
• Dan Meyerstein (born 1938), President of Ariel University Center of Samaria
• Alexander Rofé (born 1932), bible scholar

See also

• List of Israeli universities and colleges
• Education in Israel
• Samaria

References

1. Ya'ar, Chana (7 August 2011). "Thousands Visit Ariel to Explore University Center Offerings". Arutz Sheva. Retrieved 9 May 2013.
2. It's official: Ariel University recognized. Ynet News. Dec 25, 2012
3. "Ariel University Center of Samaria". Ariel.ac.il. Retrieved 24 September 2011.
4. Templer, B (2007) Educational Geopolitics and the 'Settler University' in Ariel Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies, Volume 5, Number 2
5. ^ Member Institutions
6. ^ "The GARP site at the Ariel University Center of Samaria; The academic chapter of Israel". Ariel.ac.il. Retrieved 25 October 2011.
7. ^ Ariel University Center of Samaria, in cooperation with academic institutions around the world
8. ^ "Scientific Cooperation and Partners | Ariel University Center of Samaria | Israel". University-directory.eu. Retrieved 25 October 2011.
9. "Ariel gets university status, despite opposition". The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved 17 July 2012.
10. Nationalists Welcome Decision on Ariel University, July 18, 2012 Arutz Sheva, 18 July 2012
11. "I was very impressed by the quality of the place as an academic institution and I think Israel needs another university," said Mr Aumann, a mathematician, July 17, 2012 BBC News, 17 July 2012
12. Israel's first settlement university stirs controversy, July 17, 2012 BBC News, 17 July 2012
13. Request from Ariel College to become a university turned down Walla News, 12 July 2006
14. Israel's first settlement university stirs controversy (BBC, July 17, 2012)
15. "The Geneva Convention". BBC News. 10 December 2009. Retrieved 27 November 2010.
16. Justice Ministry Downgrades Ariel University to College Israel National News, 30 March 2008
17. Ariel College upgrades itself to 'university' status Haaretz, 2 August 2007
18. Education Council: We won't recognize degrees awarded by Ariel college Haaretz, 11 June 2008
19. Council for Higher Education: Ariel university status years away The Jerusalem Post, 21 January 2010
20. Ariel academic center recognized as first Israeli university beyond Green Line Haaretz, 17 July 2012
21. Barak authorizes upgrading Ariel college to university
22. Student Body at The Ariel University Center of Samaria
23. A study in irony Haaretz, 22 June 2005
24. Arabs Studying at ‘Settler’ College Israel Today, 18 January 2006
25. Apartheid, You Say? 600 Arab Students Begin Year at Ariel U
26. Israelis, Arabs Offer Solutions to the Conflict
27. Right-wing, Palestinians brainstorm at Ariel parley
28. Makor Rishon Newspaper Ariel Wants Peace
29. Hartford Courant. 16 July 2010 http://www.courant.com/community/west-hartford/hc-west-hartford-professor-0718-20100716,0,1068977.story. Retrieved 24 September 2011. {{cite news}}: |url= missing title (help)
30. MPs question support for Ariel
31. Conference Circuit November 2008
32. Canada and Israel Continue academic cooperation
33. ^ "Apply for the IT Academy Program". Microsoft.com. Retrieved 24 September 2011.
34. Your Way to Russian Silicon Valley
35. "Israel Skolkovo Gateway". Israelsk.com. Retrieved 24 September 2011.
36. "Bi-national Russian-Israeli workshop". Academy.ac.il. 19 June 2005. Retrieved 24 September 2011.
37. "Ariel University Center of Samaria". Ariel.ac.il. 2 August 2006. Retrieved 25 October 2011.
38. http://www.masaisrael.org/NR/rdonlyres/25AACC4C-EA3E-4C6D-959A-C32291E628F9/93015/20112012MasaStudyAbroadCatalogue.pdf. Retrieved 25 October 2011. {{cite web}}: |url= missing title (help)
39. ^
40. Israeli Academics to Boycott Ariel University, Huffington Post, 9 January 2011.
41. Israel academics to boycott college Aljazeera English, 9 January 2011.
42. Spain boycotts Ariel college for being in 'occupied territory' Ynetnews.com, 22 September 2009.
43. ADL: Stop Discrimination Against Ariel University Arutz Sheva, 30 September 2009.
44. "Report to members from the AUT national council". Archived from the original on 30 January 2006. Retrieved 22 May 2005.
45. "Academics vote against Israeli boycott". The Guardian. London. 26 May 2005. Retrieved 22 May 2005.

External links

• Ariel University official site
• Friends Of Ariel University Center
• Ariel University R&D Company Ltd, the technology transfer company of Ariel University Center, israel

32°06′17″N 35°12′34″E / 32.10472°N 35.20944°E / 32.10472; 35.20944

• Use dmy dates from April 2012
• Educational institutions established in 1982
• Ariel University Center of Samaria
• Universities and colleges in the Palestinian territories