The Texas A&M System Board of Regents voted in February to close A&M’s campus in Qatar by 2028. Part of the closure involves a plan to move some staff, faculty and students to Hamad Bin Khalifa University, or HBKU, a nearby campus part of Qatar’s “Education City.”

Brittany Bounds, a professor of history at A&M at Qatar, or TAMUQ, with a Ph.D. in history, said some faculty were given 90 days’ notice that they were not going to be brought back in August. She said that two faculty were told to vacate their office by August and were given nine months pay in exchange for a position not being available to them. She said faculty were offered a position at HBKU with a start date of 1st August, which they were told was completely inflexible.

“Most of our faculty were transferring over, already had summer plans,” Bounds said. “It was either take leave without pay for the time that they were absent in August, or they had to change their flights and come back early.”

The rigid start date contributed to a negative sentiment that pervaded the campus following the regents’ decision, which the board stated was taken because it allows the A&M System to put a strong focus on institutions in the U.S, Bounds said. Faculty in Qatar were left diminished as staff began to leave and resources dissipated.

“We lost half of our faculty because the faculty figured that if we don’t go now, we’re not going to have a job in the future,” Bounds said. 

In February, César Malavé, TAMUQ’s dean, told employees that the Board of Regents would discuss the campus at their next meeting.

“He was going to be flying to College Station to be on hand just in case they had questions about our campus,” Bounds said. “But I asked him, ‘Can you gauge the mood of this conversation? And he said, ‘They’re not going to shut it down.’ … I think that what he said was that he thought that publicly the administration was under pressure to do something to make a public statement or just to discuss it publicly about our being in the Middle East.”

Then, Bounds woke up that Friday to a flurry of messages and a shock: The Board of Regents shut down TAMUQ. 

“I was stunned,” Bounds said. “Absolutely stunned to discover that they had voted and there was no discussion about it. It was a premeditated decision that seemed directed and it sent us into a whole semester of mourning … We set aside listening sessions with our students for their first weeks after the decision. Students felt demotivated, and they didn’t want to come to class.”

Bounds said that the student body is concerned about the decision.

“They are hardcore Aggies,” Bounds said. “Like, they wear their ring on campus, they say howdy, I start every class with howdy. And they’re just, they’re really disappointed. They feel like the campus turned their back on them. And they don’t understand how Texan politics can make a decision like closing a campus on the other side of the world.”

A transition team formed soon after has faced difficulties with communication between A&M and HBKU, Bounds said. She claims to have been told that the team was no longer needed despite over half of staff not yet being transitioned.

“What about everyone else?” Bounds said. “What about everyone who has stayed loyal to the university instead of jumping ship to make sure that the students have the classes that they need, that the staff can provide the services that both the students and the faculty and the other staff need?”

Some staff, especially those in HR and IT, have remained behind to keep the university functional, especially because many current students plan to stay enrolled until the closure is finalized in 2028. TAMUQ did not bring on a new class this academic year.

“We can’t just fold everything because the students need that support in order to remain credible as a credible program,” Bounds said. “You have to have A&M faculty teach A&M students.”

As co-chair of the staff transition advocacy committee, Bounds advocates for employees in Qatar, as most of the transition team works from College Station.

“They don’t know our struggles,” Bounds said. “You can’t just give someone a month’s notice because that cancels their visa, and they can’t move out in a month … Where are they going to go? … We have people who have passports that cannot apply for visas to go to the U.S., and so we can’t physically just delete people in like a month. People need time to process.”

Mechanical engineering sophomore Hazem Al Aji plans to graduate in 2027 and is part of the TAMUQ’s student government. He is part of the last group to graduate from TAMUQ.

Prior to the closure announcement, allegations swirled regarding the university, Al Aji said, including a false claim that TAMUQ was researching for Hamas, a group designated as a terrorist organization by the United States. 

“A list came out and was shared through some channels on WhatsApp to multiple students of some professors’ names highlighted in red … saying these professors are doing this research for this organization, which is completely false,” Al Aji said. “All rumors, all just blatantly false … But we really don’t understand, still, why.”

Al Aji said that political discussions became more common after it was announced that the campus would close. The claim that received the most attention was a report from the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy that claimed A&M had entered a “confidential agreement” that grants Qatar “unprecedented control over research and standards, faculty, curriculum and budgets” at TAMUQ. The allegation received extensive pushback from A&M and the A&M System. President Mark Welsh III called the claim “false and irresponsible.” 

“Usually on campus, we do not discuss politics,” Al Aji said. “Not that it’s not allowed … we just don’t engage in the topic. We don’t find it amusing, so when the news got announced, and we heard why and saw the papers and everything, that’s when it started getting discussed. Like, no, that’s not the case. This is not what we do. That’s completely false.”

Some professors did not accept an offer to transfer to HBKU and will either go to College Station or find another university to teach at. Al Aji will graduate with an A&M degree and opportunities similar to College Station students. 

“The students lost the opportunity to gain their degree, but A&M lost the degree to get students from different cultures, different mindsets, at another location,” Al Aji said. “So, yes, loss, but mostly for the campus because they’re losing bright individuals they don’t know about.”