Adj. Assoc. Prof. Kathleen Bailey (Political Science): “From the beginning, we wanted to make sure the program was not viewed as peripheral or marginal, but as something substantial that would contribute to the undergraduate curriculum and enlarge students’ perceptions about the world.” (Photo by Lee Pellegrini)
US Department of Education Grant Strengthens Islamic Studies Major
Boston College Islamic Civilization and Societies recently earned a $180,000 matching grant from the US Department of Education
By
Brian Jacek ’10 may have come to Boston College knowing precious little about either the Middle East or Islam, but that changed in a hurry.After taking a history class on the Middle East in his freshman year, Jacek says he found himself increasingly questioning “the conventional wisdom” he heard about the region. This led him to take more Middle East-oriented classes, then to declare a minor in what was then Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies — and in 2007, to become one of the first Islamic Civilization and Societies (ICS)majors at BC.
The next thing Jacek knew, he was on his way to study in Cairo for his junior year, an experience that brought further depth and diversity to his knowledge of the Middle East and Islam.
“I never had any inkling that I would be interested enough in the Middle East and Islam to make it my major,” says Jacek, a Rochester, NY, native. “It kind of just happened, and I love it. That’s what is so valuable about a liberal arts education: You can try out things and develop interests in things you never knew about.”
Jacek is one of a small, but growing, number of undergraduates who have shown a similar enthusiasm for the two-year old Islamic Civilization and Societies major. After enrolling 17 students its first year, the ICS major now counts 30 undergrads, and expects that figure to reach 45 by next year. In addition, 42 students are taking ICS as a minor.
BC’s ICS program – which replaced Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies — was fortified recently by a $180,000 matching grant from the US Department of Education, one of only 30 awards in support of international education given to US colleges and universities. The grant enables the ICS program to add new courses in language and other critical areas, offer research and study abroad fellowships to undergraduates and organize a distinguished lecture series.
A strengthened ICS major enhances the University’s global view, say the program’s administrators, and augments efforts to offer undergraduates a rich, interdisciplinary exploration of Islam far different than that presented through the media or blogosphere.
“Studying Islam should be about more than just politics and geography, about oil, conflict and Arab-Israeli issues,” says ICS Director Professor of Political Science Ali Banuazizi. “The hallmark of the program is its interdisciplinary nature, combining the departments of History, Political Science, Theology, Fine Arts and Slavic and Eastern Languages.
“This range of expertise allows us to deal with a place like Indonesia, for example, a fascinating, complex society that is seldom understood by the West,” says Banuazizi, who lauds the involvement of faculty members James Morris (Theology), Dana Sajdi (History), Franck Salameh (Slavic and Eastern Languages) and Sheila Blair and Jonathan Bloom, the Calderwood Professors in Islamic and Asian Art.
Adds ICS Associate Director Adjunct Associate Professor of Political Science Kathleen Bailey, “From the beginning, we wanted to make sure the program was not viewed as peripheral or marginal, but as something substantial that would contribute to the undergraduate curriculum and enlarge students’ perceptions about the world.”
The ICS major already appears to have accomplished precisely that, say Bailey and Banuazizi, who note that six of the program’s students have earned competitive Fulbright post-graduate awards.
Through the DOE grant, the program has expanded its offerings of languages to include Tajik, Persian and Turkish, among others.
“Previously, if any BC students wanted to study, for example, Persian, they would have to make their own arrangements — register at a language institute, or at another school,” says Banuazizi.
“Now, we’ll be able to help students find the language resources they need. It might mean entail working with a native speaker from the local area. Or working with BC faculty to design a course, such as Business Arabic, that could be taught through use of CDs and DVDs. Even if it is just one student, we should be able to accommodate his or her needs.”
In addition, the DOE grant will support the creation of courses that further broaden the major’s interdisciplinary character — justice in Islam, for example, and Middle Eastern anthropology and film history. Another area of growth for the major, says Bailey, is summer research and study grants for undergraduates, in conjunction with the University’s McGillycuddy-Logue Travel Grant program. “These grants give students a vested interest in their field. Taking a course in, say, Egyptian culture and then having the opportunity to go to Egypt and experience it firsthand is a tremendous benefit.”
Research and travel grants also will be available for faculty, she adds. The introduction this fall of the program’s Distinguished Lecture Series — which featured a talk by Iranian author Haleh Esfandiari, who chronicled her harassment and imprisonment by the Iranian regime — represents yet another constructive use of the grant, the program’s administrators say.
“It’s a way for us to bring the Middle East to the larger Boston College community,” explains Banuazizi. “Bringing in authors, scholars and other experts on topics relating to Islam is, we feel, an important means for Islamic Civilization and Societies to contribute to the University’s intellectual life.”
For information about the Islamic Civilization and Societies Program, see www.bc.edu/ics.
Sean Smith can be reached at sean.smith.1@bc.edu