Students interested in studying Iranian history, languages and culture could have a new major to choose after the fall semester in the College of International Studies.
College professors and administrators have been working to make Iranian studies the newest major at OU.
Iranian studies professor Afshin Marashi and Joshua Landis, Center for Middle East Studies director, are teaming up with others in the college to build the new program.
The program plans to offer Persian language by next fall, Marashi said. Once the program has history, culture and language, the college will then have an official major or minor, he said.
“Our goal is to stand as one of the major Iranian study programs in the country,” Marashi said. “In the past few years, there’s been a lot of efforts to create similar programs like in California ... Maryland or Portland State University.”
While Iranian studies is not a major, students in any colleges can take Iran-related classes, including Iranian cinema or Iranian architecture.
The program was put in motion four or five years ago when the Farzaneh family contacted Landis.
Landis then led a three-year lecture series about Iranian politics upon receiving $60,000 from the family.
The family members made the decision to support the program after 9/11 because they understood it was very important for them to try to change the mindset of the American people, Landis said.
President David Boren had previously shown a commitment to Middle Eastern studies, he said.
Once university officials including Boren showed they were serious about the program, the family decided to sponsor more than just lectures.
The Farzaneh family donated $1 million to support the new program.
“President Boren was very interested about Asia and the Middle East and hired a lot of scholars specialized in these domains, me included,” Landis said.
With the funding in place, the next step was finding a professor until Marashi came to OU, Landis said.
Marashi said he has seen students demonstrate an interest in the new field.
“Students showed a real hunger for understanding Iran and all of its characteristics. I’ve been overwhelmed by the interest actually,” Marashi said.
Marashi said he sees education about Iran’s culture, history and languages as such an important topic is how little Americans understand about Iranian-U.S. relations.
“Iran is such an important country in the world and especially for the United States: They have not had a formal diplomatic relation since 1979,” Marashi said. “We lose expertise in this country, and there are in fact very few Americans who can serve as diplomats because they don’t know anything about Iran. It means that now, very few Americans have the capacity to fix the diplomatic situation.”