INTERLINK Language Centers announces the opening of its new center at Al-Yamamah College in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in September 2004. The new center will provide English training, academic preparation, and cultural orientation programs for students of the college and the wider community.

Newly established under the Private College Act of the Saudi Arabian government, Al-Yamamah College is preparing to offer state-of the-art academic programs in business administration and information systems.  The College will open its doors to the public in 2004 on a new campus site in one of the Riyadh suburbs. Initial enrollment is estimated at 2,100 students.  The academic curriculum is designed to meet growing needs of the Saudi business community and to satisfy the international accreditation requirements. It was developed in conjunction and consultation with the Faculty of Business Administration at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada.

INTERLINK Languages Centers (ILC) will directly administer the “Foundation Year,” which includes intensive English language instruction to prepare students for their academic studies in English at Al-Yamamah.   ILC has conducted intensive English programs for almost a quarter of a century and is now located on four campuses in the United States (Colorado School of Mines, Indiana State University, Valparaiso University and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro).  It is now recruiting qualified staff and faculty to participate in pre-departure training in a curriculum especially designed to address the language acquisition needs and skills of the Saudi students.

In response to a question about the timing of the opening of the Center in Riyadh in the face of on-going international tensions, INTERLINK President Ahad Shahbaz quoted lines from the obscure poet Al-Mebane: 

Every man is brother to every other,
Yet each may find but terror,
In what he yet knows not of the other.

For more information on INTERLINK Language Centers and Al-Yamamah College, please visit our web sites at: www.ESLus.com and http://www.alyamamah.edu.sa