Swarthmore College has received a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support a new faculty position in Arabic language study to be shared among Swarthmore, Bryn Mawr, and Haverford Colleges, assisting the three institutions in establishing the Tri-College Islamic/Middle Eastern Studies Initiative.
The shared faculty position represents a collaborative effort of the Tri-College Consortium. It is funded by grants of $670,000 in continuing endowment support to each Tri-College institution from the Mellon Foundation to encourage cooperation in the appointment of faculty across institutional lines, particularly in curricular areas that address significant gaps in intellectual life.
The cornerstone of the new initiative is the introduction of new courses in Modern Standard Arabic language instruction. In addition, the initiative will foster new opportunities for Tri-College study abroad and faculty development in Islamic and Middle Eastern studies.
The Mellon grants mark a new level of cooperation among Swarthmore, Bryn Mawr and Haverford with the inter-institutional sharing of faculty and the establishment of an innovative and more cost-effective approach to language instruction. “The initiative has the potential to transform each of the college’s offerings in Islamic and Middle Eastern studies into an area of excellence with a breadth that would be impossible to achieve within a single liberal arts institution,” said Constance Cain Hungerford, Swarthmore’s provost.
