The University was recently awarded a $177,981 grant by the Department of Education, which it plans to use to expand its Arabic instruction, provide funding for professors who want to focus their instruction on the Middle East, and potentially create a Middle Eastern Studies Certificate program. A permanent Arabic professorship will be created in the Department of Less Commonly Taught Languages to enhance the Arabic program and allow for more class offerings.

“Having a permanent instructor would mean that the quality of our instruction would be more intense and in line with what other universities are offering,” said Professor of History Bruce Masters, one of the few scholars who specializes in Middle Eastern studies.

Professors who want to expand their area of focus to the Middle East will also be provided with grant money. A professor teaching a government or economics class may be encouraged to include the Middle East as one of several topics studied in their course.

The Department of Education funding falls under a Title VI grant that will work to “ensure a steady supply of graduates with expertise in less commonly taught languages” both for economic and national security reasons.

This grant comes on the heels of another grant that the University received last year from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for $100,000. That money was used to bring Mellon fellow Asya El-Meehu to campus and to fund the upcoming Middle Eastern film festival in November. Although the Foundation may provide additional grants to the University to continue the development of the new program, its funds have become limited due to the economic recession.

The Department of Education and Mellon Foundation grants have helped the University fulfill its new commitment to Middle Eastern studies. Independent of the grants, the administration created a new full-time position in Middle Eastern studies this year, which Assistant Professor of Government Anne Peters currently fills; she is teaching the course “Comparative Politics of the Middle East” this fall. The administration also approved a search for a new Professor of Religion and Women’s Studies in Islam.

A committee has also been exploring the feasibility of creating a Middle Eastern Studies Certificate. The committee will be designing a cluster of courses that will be presented to the Educational Policy Committee and then to the faculty. If the committee’s recommendations are approved, a Middle Eastern Studies Certificate could be offered to students as early as next year.

Although the exact requirements for the certificate are still being discussed, the Certificate will most likely be modeled after the International Relations Certificate.

“My guess is, based on the number of students currently taking Arabic and other Middle Eastern studies courses, that they will go for it,” Masters said.

If the program is well received by the student body, it may be expanded to a major similar to the Latin American and East Asian Studies majors.

Justin Peña ’12 would have considered a major in Middle Eastern Studies had it been available to him. He foresees the Certificate as becoming a popular draw for students.

“It’s pretty much guaranteed that there is going to be a good number of students signing up for [the Middle Eastern Studies Certificate],” Peña said.

The University’s new commitment to Middle Eastern studies is one element of the larger plan described in President Michael Roth’s Internationalization Initiative, the goals of which include globalizing the curriculum and increasing the number of international students.

“If you look down the list of parts of the world offered in our curriculum, [the Middle East] is kind of a dark hole,” Masters said. “It’s an area where we’ve been weak. And student demand has been phenomenal, both in Arabic classes and courses we’ve been offering. We have over-subscription in all of them.”

The University will continue to look for money to enhance the program.

“We’re actively fundraising for Middle Eastern Studies,” President Roth said. “We are eager to raise money for academic programming and one of the priorities is this field.”

 

 

Goals for the Middle Eastern Studies program:
– hire a permanent Arabic professor
– provide funding for professors who teach classes about the Middle East
– search for a Professor of Religion and Women’s Studies in Islam
– create a Middle Eastern Studies Certificate, and possibly a major