Since our first cohort in 2007, the ranks of our alumni have steadily grown. The Institute for Middle East Studies is committed to reconnecting with alumni and sharing their wealth of expertise with our current students. Through our new alumni mentoring initiative and expanded alumni programming, we hope to provide meaningful opportunities for alumni to remain engaged with the Institute and our students.

As I begin my second year as Program Director of Middle East Studies (Dr. Nathan Brown continues to lead the Institute), I am impressed by the amazing work of our students, who bring to our program a wealth of overseas experiences. Fortunately, we are able to support their passion for regional languages with a generous grant from ARAMEX, as well as full-tuition FLAS fellowships and other language grants. We are proud to support their stateside efforts during the school year with free one-on-one tutoring, topical lectures delivered in Arabic, and an Arabic book club headed by Mitchell Ford (read more in this issue).

The turmoil and upheaval of the past several years continues to pose a challenge to students wishing to extend their experience in the region. But as one door closes, another opens. We are excited to promote four new transfer-credit based study abroad opportunities for 2017-2019 including The Doha Institute for Graduate Studies (Qatar), Birzeit University (Palestine), the University of Jordan, and Ecole de Gouvernance at d’Economie/EGE (Morocco). We hope to continue to build our relationships in the region in order to support student language study, in-country internships, and capstone research, as well as promote cross-regional collaboration with GW faculty and regional scholars.

But enough about us! As always, we want to know about your latest adventures and career developments. Please let us know if you have news you would like to share with other alumni or if you are interested in participating in our alumni programs. You can also keep in touch via Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. And if you’re in the neighborhood, don’t miss out on the wonderful array of events at the Institute. You can also listen to past events on our new podcast, Al-Markaz.

Best regards,

Professor Mona Atia
Director, Middle East Studies Program