Funding
The Office of International Affairs provides the Middle East Studies Center with an operating budget of $10,000 and matching funds for Center salaries. The Graduate School provides Fee authorizations for 8 Academic Year Fellows and 6 summer fellows. Title VI provides the vast majority of our funding with $513,299 being the yearly amount for the current grant cycle (2006-2010). For a breakdown, see below under “Title VI Funding”. We receive between $5000 and $10,000 per year for the purpose of Outreach and Program development from donors.
Title VI Funding:
To give a clearer picture of what the Middle East Studies Center is accomplishing, how it is functioning, and how it is using its resources, it is useful to look at how we are spending Title VI funding. The vast majority of the funds go to support the FLAS fellowships, while the remaining categories are relatively equal in funding levels (see charts below—note that these are for FY07 which included $14,447 in carry-over funds from the previous year). The second largest portion, after the FLAS Fellowship, goes to courses, which also directly impacts students. Many of our activities do not require many funds, such as outreach and teacher training conducted by the Center staff, or we receive co-sponsorship and reduce the cost that way. There is virtually no activity which does not receive co-sponsorship or benefit from partnership with other university units. The Center also has one of the leanest staffing compositions of any NRC in the country, falling well below the benchmarks in terms of number of personnel and the full-time equivalent percentages. The FLAS Fellowship, proficiency tests for the fellows, the many fiscal transactions and balancing the budget, travel arrangements, program planning, organizing academic and educational activities, course preparation and instruction, outreach, training, media questions and interviews, collaborative projects, proposal writing, and major reports to Title VI authorities and to the university, help with delegations and guests to the university, consultations, and a myriad of items too numerous to mention, keep all of us at the Center working at full capacity and often more.
Because of our staffing situation, and the need to provide access to specialized knowledge, the Center relies on faculty support to make its academic activities successful. Even if faculty members are not involved with the Center, their mere presence at our university helps us because it makes Middle East-related academics stronger and improves our proposal for Title VI. This is why seeding positions is another important strategy for both university goals and Title VI goals. However, faculty interest and support is important and crucial to our success. Achieving excellence in academic programming requires teamwork with the faculty members in organizing activities, and we look forward to further progress based on such partnerships.
NRC/FLAS Expenditures/Allocations FY07 |
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|
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Library Contribution |
$ 35,000.00 |
Guest Speakers |
$ 14,230.81 |
Courses |
$ 50,638.26 |
FLAS |
$ 266,106.00 |
Faculty Lines* |
$ 30,931.06 |
Foreign Travel |
$ 17,963.35 |
Outreach/conference travel |
$ 13,020.30 |
Admin |
$ 60,763.95 |
8% for Research Foundation |
$ 4,861.12 |
|
|
Total |
$ 488,653.73 |
8% for Research Foundation |
$ 39,092.30 |
Grand Total |
$ 527,746.03 |
* One of these faculty members had not been hired yet. |
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