Ohio State is in the process of revising websites and program materials to accurately reflect compliance with the law. While this work occurs, language referencing protected class status or other activities prohibited by Ohio Senate Bill 1 may still appear in some places. However, all programs and activities are being administered in compliance with federal and state law.

Announcements

Check here for announcements, information on resources and opportunities for you, your students, and for scholars of the Middle East, in general. Job listings, and calls for papers, as well as new courses you or your colleagues may be offering are regularly updated here and in the afore-linked subpages, in addition to study tours, grants/fellowships and other opportunities. 

 

Announcements:

The Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship competition for 2015-2016 has been cancelled.

Title VI Grant Proposal Outcome:

In the past 28 years our center participated in 9 Title VI competitions to achieve the status of National Resource Center (NRC) for the Ohio State University (OSU) in the area of Middle East Studies.  In the past 8 consecutive competitions, our proposals were recommended by our peers to receive the prestigious award.  This status situated OSU in the top 10- 20 major research universities in the U.S for extensive offerings in Middle East Studies.  In addition to this national recognition, the Middle East Studies Center (MESC) received a total of approximately 13 million dollars from the federal government for its teaching, scholarly exchange and outreach activities.  This has been accomplished with one of the smallest center staff in the country, when compared to other regularly-Title-VI-funded centers.

For centers which have generally had successes in the past many years, experiencing the loss of center status - even for one cycle - is a painful blow. It is likewise painful for us to share this news – although we consider it only a temporary setback – with our students, affiliated faculty and our superiors.  Unfortunately, our Center is one of the many centers who lost their status this time.  Especially in this cycle of competition, many area studies centers which usually receive Title VI experienced this setback. We received the following information from the U.S. Department of Education on Oct 7th: “the FY14 competition was very competitive. . .[with] fewer funds than the FY10 competition. . .on estimate, 2-4 fewer centers per world area this grant period.” Historically, about 6 of the national Middle East NRC’s have both lost and regained their center funding over the years.

We have learned over the past 28 years, and having written 8 successful proposals, a major lesson: a large number of Title VI centers, some much stronger than our own, were not funded for a cycle or two before they regained their status.  They did not give up, and continued applying.  Title VI continues to be recognized as a national benchmark for excellence a universities nationwide. The way forward is to address the issues revealed by this current situation.  With or without Title VI funding, the Middle East region, with its past richness, geopolitical importance, and very complicated present, will continue to remain as an important region for the current and many future generations in the United States and the world.  Further, the reviewers identified many strengths in regard to Middle East Studies at OSU.  In particular, they recognized our excellence, especially in regard to:

·         The library collection.  The Middle East Studies Library Collection continues to be led by excellent faculty and staff, and the library has replaced retired faculty members. The Middle East Studies Center has contributed approximately $800,000 towards acquisitions since its inception as a Title VI Center.

·         Outreach. One called our work “Outstanding and gave us full marks, another said “This applicant has been doing great work in outreach”.  The third reviewer questioned the effectiveness of our outreach due to a lack of outcomes-based evaluation, but acknowledge the breadth of activities.

·         How we are addressing the current priorities of Title VI. Specifically, collaboration with Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), our cooperation with the College of Education, and our inclusion of students with financial need.  


Opportunities:

The Euro-Islam website (www.euro-islam.info) is currently recruiting a student/researcher working on Muslims in the Netherlands for its website research team. Proficiency in Dutch is key. Each week the researcher will collect news stories covering current events impacting Muslims or Islam in the Netherlands, provide a short English outline for each story, and submit them to the webmaster for publishing. Weekly responsibilities require approximately 3-4 hours. While the Euro-Islam website unfortunately cannot offer compensation, the student researcher will benefit from weekly research opportunities, networking/collaboration opportunities through Harvard's Islam in the West Program, and access to a large audience of scholars, politicians, and media professionals via the web's most reliable source on Muslims in the West.

Please refer interested students to Dr. Jocelyne Cesari, jcesari@fas.harvard.edu