Despite the activeness and optimism of the Middle East Center’s new co-directors, students and faculty are struggling to cope with the changes coming with the center’s reconstruction.
After director Bahman Baktiari was fired over a plagiarism scandal, the center lost a federal grant worth $4.5 million and an audit showed large money loss, the beleaguered center has undergone a dramatic restructuring. Two interim co-directors, Kirk Jowers of the Hinckley Institute of Politics and Bob Goldberg of the Tanner Humanities Center were hired to help rebuild the center.
To help restore its prestige, the co-directors said they are focusing on fundraising, getting more of the school’s faculty involved in the center and putting a hold on accepting graduate school applications during the two-year reconstruction period in order to reassess the efficiency of the program.
“Appointing Robert Goldberg and Kirk Jowers to co-chair, the process is a huge step,” said Robert Newman, the dean of the College of Humanities.
Newman is enthusiastic about the reconstruction, and the co-directors are hoping to restore the program within the next two years.
However, there are those involved with the program who think such a quick rebirth is too optimistic.
“They say that it will be renewed with new hires in two years. That’s completely unrealistic,” said Peter Von Sivers, a Middle Eastern history professor, one of only six professors remaining as faculty of the center.
Von Sivers believes that full renewal of the program is a long way out, and could take four to six years.
The lack of professors is one of the biggest problems that the center faces, Von Sivers said. The first priority should be hiring new professors, then finding a new director and working from there to regain the grant.
“A respectable director can only be hired with a respectable number of professors,” Von Sivers said. “The best would be a cluster hire — hiring three professors in one shot.”
The uncertainty has also taken a toll on the students involved in Middle Eastern studies.
Von Sivers said among undergraduates there is a lot of insecurity and rumors that have made students hesitant to take upper-division classes, noting the diminishing numbers in his 3000-level classes. He said for graduate students it is worse.
“Current graduate students will continue to be effectively mentored toward timely completion of their degrees,” Newman said.
But Von Sivers said there has been unrest among the remaining graduates who worry, however realistically, their degrees might not be worth anything.
The co-directors are also trying to increase the number and breadth of faculty working in the center, by focusing meetings around faculty from other areas of the U whose specialties include Middle Eastern studies.
Von Sivers doesn’t believe the expansion will help restore the program.
“How can it be rebuilt on the basis of professors for whom the Middle East is at most, peripheral?” he said.
However, one thing that all parties seem to be able to agree on is that the new codirectors have made great strides with regaining funds.
“In addition to internal organizational improvements, the MEC community advisory board has also been expanded to help with fundraising,” Newman said.
Von Sivers agrees fundraising is a good first step.
“It’s wonderful that there are finally these two directors that are hands on,” Von Sivers said, noting the directors have allowed the Humanities Center to take over a part of outreach and help raise funds. “They can lay the foundation but not much else.”
