Forming an institutional culture with multinational administrators and teachers at Effat College, Saudi Arabia

Abstract

This article describes the teaching and learning culture of a newly established women’s college in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The academic culture at Effat College in 2002 included administrators and teachers from many nations, which created unique challenges in cross‐cultural communication. These challenges, in turn, affected the development and organization of the institutional culture at Effat. Using a cultural lens, archival data were used to analyze the expectations and relations between the multicultural faculty and administration at the college. Our research revealed that the faculty related to one another through their own cultural perspectives. Faculty from the western nations promoted more reflective and constructivist classrooms, while those from eastern nations were more authoritarian. With a diverse faculty from multiple nations holding significant differences in cultural expectations, it is important to acknowledge that all beliefs hold value and deserve respect. Whether or not people accept one another’s views, just having a more clear understanding of the differences may allow them to seek out commonalities and explain varying perspectives and actions. Therefore, we need to be conscious of the cultural assumptions faculty and administrators bring with them into higher education.