Yvonne Unnold is the project leader for ASU-Queretaro, which is expected to open in fall 2015 with about 1,000 students.
The new campus will be built in Queretaro in north central Mexico. Officials there approached Arkansas State for help in creating an American-style university where students live on campus as an alternative to the traditional commuter school in Mexico, said Yvonne Unnold, project leader for ASU-Queretaro.
“We will do what we do best,” Unnold said. “We will focus exclusively on facilitating excellence in education within an academic living-learning community.”
The Queretaro campus is scheduled to open in fall 2015 with about 1,000 students, and enrollment is expected to grow to about 5,000 students in about five years. The school estimates that about 30 percent of the students will come from the state of Queretaro, while another 30 percent will come from other states in Mexico. The remainder of the population will come from Latin America and other countries worldwide, including current Arkansas State students in the United States.
Classes will be taught in English, and the school will initially offer 15 majors, including electrical engineering, chemistry, world languages, business administration and strategic communications.
“We are creating a living-learning community and we are teaching our ways, where it is not a lecture hall where we spoon-feed knowledge,” Unnold said. “We need our students to acquire skills. We are preparing a new generation for employment opportunities and employment needs that have not yet been defined. We need our students to be able to problem-solve.”
The Association for the Advancement of Mexican Education, which is a private business foundation, has acquired about 2,000 acres for a development that includes the Arkansas State campus in Queretaro. The $50 million campus will be paid for through private gifts, with the private foundation underwriting any operating deficits for up to three years after the campus opens.
