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UD hosts 21 Middle Eastern students 3:57 p.m., July 11, 2005--The University of Delaware Center for International Studies is hosting student leaders from Middle Eastern and North African countries this summer. A $320,000 grant from the state department’s Middle East Partnership Initiative is enabling 21 top undergraduate students to spend four weeks on the UD campus and two weeks on study tours to Atlanta and the American Southwest. UD received a similar grant last year to bring academic and socially involved students from Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the West Bank/Gaza. Sean Michael Cox, associate director of the center, said UD’s success in being chosen to host for a second year is a reflection of the great number of UD faculty who supported last year’s effort: “The contributions of all of these faculty members from all of these colleges is really what makes the program so successful.’’ The academic responsibilities of the program rest with the academic director, Daniel Green, associate professor of Political Science and International Relations. The program, which began July 5 and ends on Aug. 20, aims to show the students what America is about and what the American people are like. American values and culture will be taught through modules on “American Norms and Attitudes,” “American Culture Formation and Transmission” and “American Institutions.” The modules are taught by UD faculty from 11 departments in three colleges. Audrey Helfman, director of the University’s Leadership Education at Delaware Program, will teach the leadership components. Lesa G. Griffiths, center director, and Cox will manage the program. Stephen Amster serves as the coordinator, managing all the program logistics. The students and their hosts will travel around Delaware and visit New York City, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Atlanta and the Grand Canyon area. The program will include academic orientation to the spots students visit. During the trip west, for example, lectures will focus on western migration within the U.S. and American Indians in American history. When the students visit the West’s national parks, they will hear lectures from Northern Arizona University faculty focusing on national parks and natural resource management, two subjects not common in their home countries. They will visit The Carter Center and the Martin Luther King Jr. Historic Site in Atlanta and tour Spellman College, a historically black college. The students receive leadership training at UD. When they return to their home countries, they are expected to train others to lead and initiate a project that will benefit people there. One of last year’s participants, inspired by a visit to Young Correctional Center in Wilmington, returned to Morocco and organized students to tutor prisoners in both Arabic and English, Cox said. One returned to Lebanon and rented an apartment where students tutored children after school. Another, who started leadership training seminars for students in Jordan, now works with the United Nations. “The University of Delaware is both delighted and honored to have been awarded this program a second time,’’ Griffiths said. “Our experience last year was rewarding for all of the participants and for the University of Delaware community, who enthusiastically welcomed the students to our country and our campus. It was a pleasure to spend time with the MEPI students, learning about their culture as they studied ours. We saw real leaders emerge and put what they learned into practice when they returned home.’ Article by Kathy Canavan To learn how to subscribe to UDaily, click here. |
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