University of Wisconsin-Green Bay educators are looking to coordinate a growing number of Middle East travel and study programs with a new center dedicated to those pursuits.
UWGB’s Center for Middle East Studies officially got started last week, said center director and professor of humanistic studies David Coury. It doesn’t have a physical space but officials are enthusiastic about its prospects.
“I think that just on a day-to-day basis, that the news that comes out of the Middle East is very, very crucial to world events,” Coury said. “So I think it’s important, both at the university and the K-12 secondary schools, (to) teach more about nonwestern history, and particularly about the Middle East — about the history, the culture, as well as the politics of it.”
UWGB is involved in three travel programs with Jordan and Israel. Its U.S. State Department-sponsored Journey to Jordan program brings high school
The university recently completed its Young Entrepreneurs program, another State Department-sponsored initiative that brought 10 women from Israel and Jordan to Green Bay for a month. Many of the Green Bay mentors for that program will travel to the region this summer.
Finally, a Department of Education grant will allow high school and university educators to travel to Jordan for a month this summer.
Short-term goals for the Center for Middle East Studies include launching its Web site, which Coury hopes will serve as a K-12 and postsecondary resource for Middle East issues and travel. In the longer term, he hopes the center can provide scholarships for travel to and from the region.
UWGB used to offer Arabic courses and plans to do so again this fall with an instructor from Jordan, Coury said.
“I think that there is an interest amongst students about the Middle East, about Arab culture and, of course, about Islam,” he said. “And I think that it’s important that as an educational institution, that we teach more about these areas of the world.”