KAUST and its 14-square-mile campus opened last month in Saudi Arabia, on the Red Sea at Thuwal. (Photo courtesy of KAUST)

The King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) opened to worldwide fanfare this September. Located along the coast of the Red Sea in western Saudi Arabia, and less than an hour drive from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia’s second-largest city, KAUST is an international, graduate-level research university unlike any seen in the Middle East.

Boasting world-class research facilities, one of the world’s fastest supercomputers and some of the top academians in the world, KAUST offers something unheard of in this fundamentally Islamic region — a co-ed campus.

KAUST is the realization of the vision of King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al Saud, who hopes the university will inspire a new age of scientific achievement.

But to do that, faculty and students needed to be recruited and brought over to this Islamic country of more than 27 million people.

That is where Florence resident Terry Van Ballegooijen comes in. Van ballegooijen is the Western Hemisphere Director of Logistics for KAUST.

“My job is to help recruit, move people over and arrange visas for students and faculty,” said Van Ballegooijen by telephone from his office in Washington, D.C.

Van Ballegooijen, along with his wife Kathleen, made his way to Florence in 1999 after working 24 years for Aramco, the Saudi state-owned oil company. An industrial engineer, Van Ballegooijen worked on warehouse design, construction and operations during his time with Aramco.

A graduate of Kettering University (formally known as the General Motors Institute) in Flint, Mich., Van Ballegooijen said he never thought he would end up working in the Middle East. After graduating, Van Ballegooijen said he answered a help wanted ad with a picture of a pipeline he saw in the Detroit Free Press.

“I thought I was applying for a job in Alaska working on the pipeline,” he said with a laugh. “A recruiting agency called back and asked me to fly to Houston. At the end of our conversation (the recruiter) quickly asked, ‘Oh, by the way, you don’t mind working in Saudi Arabia, do you?’ I then got out a map and looked up where he was talking about.”

Going from the United States to Saudi Arabia took some adjusting.

“It’s a very interesting place,” said Van Ballegooijen. “In some ways, it’s very biblical. You can go right out to the desert and still see Abraham and Lot tending their sheep.”

Upon retiring in 1999, the Van Ballegooijens chose to settle in Florence, to be near Kathleen’s parents, who lived in Springfield at the time.

“It was a bit of a culture shock when we first moved back (to the States),” he said. “We established a lot of good friendships over there.”

One thing Van Ballegooijen said he does not miss from his time there is the food.

After settling in Florence, the Van Ballegooijens quickly became involved in their new community. Terry was named local Kiwanian of the Year for 2006-2007.

“That was a big surprise,” said Van Ballegooijen, who flew to Washington, D.C., to begin working for KAUST the morning after picking up his award. “There are a lot of good people working in Florence.”

Van Ballegooijen said the chance to help recruit for KAUST was too good to pass up.

“It’s been an exciting opportunity,” he said. “It has the potential to change the way other universities operate.”

Rather than going through the Saudi Department of Education, King Abdullah entrusted Aramco with building and running KAUST.

“(Aramco is) used to handling million-dollar projects and getting them done quickly,” said Van Ballegooijen.

Work began in October of 2007. Less than two years later, the university was completed.

Although he said there are always challenges when opening a new facility, finding faculty and students was not difficult.

“It wasn’t hard to find candidates. It was harder to screen them. This is a pretty prestigious appointment,” he said. “The lab and equipment are the biggest draws. No expense was spared.”

Students were primarily recruited through the Institute of Education. Those accepted receive a stipend and a tuition-free education.

“With 62 countries represented, it’s truly an international student body,” said Van Ballegooijen. “We have about 400 in class now, with another 200 expected in January. We want to get the student body up to 2,000 students.

The idea of men and women attending school together has been controversial in this traditional Islamic society, where, outside of the KAUST campus, women are not allowed to even drive. Van Ballegooijen said a cleric who had voiced his opposition to the new university was recently removed by royal decree.

“This is still a very tribal area. The idea of men and women studying together is a real transition for the country,” Van Ballegooijen said. “It’s a very male-dominated society and probably always will be.”

Despite the critics, Van Ballegooijen said King Abdullah is committed to making KAUST a success.

“The King has read his history,” he said. “The Arabs were once on top of the world in promoting wisdom and knowledge. They look at this as more of a recovery than something new.”

According to Van Ballegooijen, working in Washington, D.C., has been an exciting experience. When he first started on the job, Van Ballegooijen’s office was located near the White House.

“Walking by the White House in the morning, there is kind of a special feeling about that,” he said.

In the meantime, with positions at the university remaining to be filled, Van Ballegooijen said he is still busy recruiting.

“It’s been an exciting project where I get to work with a lot of good people,” he said. “I’m just kind of tidying things up and I’ll see what comes next.”