Richard
08-07-2010, 07:35
Guess they don't believe all they hear in the news or the blogosphere.
And so it goes...
Richard :munchin
For American Students, Life Lessons in the Mideast
NYT, 6 Aug 2010
Part 1 of 2
[I]AT first glance, they seem like typical American college students on their junior year abroad, swapping stories of language mishaps and cultural clashes, sharing sightseeing tips and travel deals. But these students are not studying at Oxford, the Sorbonne or an art institute in Florence.
Instead, they are attending the American University in Cairo, studying Arabic, not French, and dealing with cultural, social and religious matters far more complex than those in Spain or Italy. And while their European counterparts might head to Heidelberg, Germany, for a weekend of beer drinking, these students visit places most Americans know only through news reports — the West Bank, Ethiopia and even northern Iraq. No “Sex and the City” jaunts to Abu Dhabi for this group.
In what educators are calling the fastest growing study-abroad program, American college students are increasingly choosing to spend their traditional junior year abroad in places like Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, wanting to experience the Arab world beyond America’s borders and viewpoints.
According to a February 2010 report from the Institute of International Education, a private nonprofit group that administers the Fulbright program for the United States government, the number of American students studying in Arabic-speaking countries increased sixfold to 3,399 in 2007 from 562 in 2002.
While that number may seem small compared with the more than 33,000 American students who headed to the United Kingdom in 2007 and the 13,000 who studied in China, it represents the fastest growing region for study abroad in the world. Between 2006 and 2007 the number of American students studying in Arab countries rose nearly 60 percent while China had only a 19 percent increase and England, 1.9 percent.
These numbers have no doubt been bolstered by the Critical Language Scholarship Program, begun in 2006 by the State Department — a government initiative set up to encourage college-age students to study Arabic, as well as 12 other listed languages, including Punjabi and Azerbaijani. Since then the program has become so popular (more than 12,000 students having applied for the Arabic program since its inception, with 800 being awarded scholarships), that this year eligibility was restricted to college and graduate students who have already had at least one year of Arabic.
Lisa Anderson, the provost at the American University in Cairo, which has a student population of around 7,000, said she has “absolutely seen a surge in U.S. students’ interest in the region,” adding that before 9/11 the university had 50 to 75 American students studying there each year, compared with around 350 a semester now.
“But you have to understand, these are not the same kids who go bike touring in France,” said Ms. Anderson, who joined the faculty two years ago from Columbia University. “Many are contemplating careers in the Middle East, perhaps with the Foreign Service or an N.G.O. They are very serious about this region of the world.”
Alex Thompson, 21, a Princeton senior this academic year who spent last year at the American University in Cairo, is typical of the student Ms. Anderson described. His interest in the Middle East stemmed from a summer spent at Seeds of Peace, a camp based in Maine with a mission to empower high school students from America, Egypt, Israel and the Palestinian territories, as well as other war-torn areas, to work for a better future.
“I knew then I wanted to learn more about the conflict in the Middle East and live there,” Mr. Thompson said, adding that he spent one of his last vacations in Egypt traveling around Kurdistan with some friends. “We took a cab to Iraq from Turkey,” he said, as casually as if he had just jumped the Eurostar from London to Paris.
LIKE most American students traveling to the Arab world, Mr. Thompson had already taken two years of modern standard Arabic at Princeton. Yet modern standard Arabic is a formal written form (the language of the Koran) that is rarely spoken in the streets and is likened to Shakespearean English — making it necessary for serious students to learn one of the many spoken regional dialects. Mr. Thompson, who hopes to work in Islamic finance one day, learned Egyptian colloquial Arabic, the everyday language in Cairo.
Brian Reeves, 21, and Leigh Nusbaum, 20, incoming seniors at Brandeis University, are Jewish, speak Hebrew and have spent considerable time in Israel. Hoping to one day work on the peace settlement, they came to the Middle East last term wanting to explore the other side of the Arab-Israeli conflict while honing their language skills.
“Arabic is the new Russian,” said Ms. Nusbaum, who spent last spring studying at the American University in Cairo and wants to become a regional diplomat. Mr. Reeves chose the University of Jordan in Amman, where he learned the Levantine dialect spoken in the Palestinian territories, Syria and Lebanon. “I wanted to find out what Jews and Arabs have in common,” Mr. Reeves said. “A lot.”
Both students traveled extensively, including personal fact-finding visits to Palestinian refugee camps, as well as to Ramallah in the West Bank, all the while being discreet about their Jewish identity. Despite peace among Israel, Jordan and Egypt, strong feelings exist in all three countries when it comes to the Palestinian conflict.
To that end, Mr. Reeves quickly learned to speak in code when in public. “Israel became ‘Disneyland,’ Tel Aviv was ‘Epcot,’ and Jerusalem was called, ‘Cinderella’s Castle,’ ” he said. For Ms. Nusbaum, the experience of being delayed at the Israeli border for nearly five hours when she tried to cross from Jordan into the West Bank was both frustrating and enlightening. “I had stamps in my passport from Lebanon and Syria so they questioned me extensively before letting me through,” she said. “It gave me a real taste of what the Palestinians go through.”
(cont'd) [I/]
And so it goes...
Richard :munchin
For American Students, Life Lessons in the Mideast
NYT, 6 Aug 2010
Part 1 of 2
[I]AT first glance, they seem like typical American college students on their junior year abroad, swapping stories of language mishaps and cultural clashes, sharing sightseeing tips and travel deals. But these students are not studying at Oxford, the Sorbonne or an art institute in Florence.
Instead, they are attending the American University in Cairo, studying Arabic, not French, and dealing with cultural, social and religious matters far more complex than those in Spain or Italy. And while their European counterparts might head to Heidelberg, Germany, for a weekend of beer drinking, these students visit places most Americans know only through news reports — the West Bank, Ethiopia and even northern Iraq. No “Sex and the City” jaunts to Abu Dhabi for this group.
In what educators are calling the fastest growing study-abroad program, American college students are increasingly choosing to spend their traditional junior year abroad in places like Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, wanting to experience the Arab world beyond America’s borders and viewpoints.
According to a February 2010 report from the Institute of International Education, a private nonprofit group that administers the Fulbright program for the United States government, the number of American students studying in Arabic-speaking countries increased sixfold to 3,399 in 2007 from 562 in 2002.
While that number may seem small compared with the more than 33,000 American students who headed to the United Kingdom in 2007 and the 13,000 who studied in China, it represents the fastest growing region for study abroad in the world. Between 2006 and 2007 the number of American students studying in Arab countries rose nearly 60 percent while China had only a 19 percent increase and England, 1.9 percent.
These numbers have no doubt been bolstered by the Critical Language Scholarship Program, begun in 2006 by the State Department — a government initiative set up to encourage college-age students to study Arabic, as well as 12 other listed languages, including Punjabi and Azerbaijani. Since then the program has become so popular (more than 12,000 students having applied for the Arabic program since its inception, with 800 being awarded scholarships), that this year eligibility was restricted to college and graduate students who have already had at least one year of Arabic.
Lisa Anderson, the provost at the American University in Cairo, which has a student population of around 7,000, said she has “absolutely seen a surge in U.S. students’ interest in the region,” adding that before 9/11 the university had 50 to 75 American students studying there each year, compared with around 350 a semester now.
“But you have to understand, these are not the same kids who go bike touring in France,” said Ms. Anderson, who joined the faculty two years ago from Columbia University. “Many are contemplating careers in the Middle East, perhaps with the Foreign Service or an N.G.O. They are very serious about this region of the world.”
Alex Thompson, 21, a Princeton senior this academic year who spent last year at the American University in Cairo, is typical of the student Ms. Anderson described. His interest in the Middle East stemmed from a summer spent at Seeds of Peace, a camp based in Maine with a mission to empower high school students from America, Egypt, Israel and the Palestinian territories, as well as other war-torn areas, to work for a better future.
“I knew then I wanted to learn more about the conflict in the Middle East and live there,” Mr. Thompson said, adding that he spent one of his last vacations in Egypt traveling around Kurdistan with some friends. “We took a cab to Iraq from Turkey,” he said, as casually as if he had just jumped the Eurostar from London to Paris.
LIKE most American students traveling to the Arab world, Mr. Thompson had already taken two years of modern standard Arabic at Princeton. Yet modern standard Arabic is a formal written form (the language of the Koran) that is rarely spoken in the streets and is likened to Shakespearean English — making it necessary for serious students to learn one of the many spoken regional dialects. Mr. Thompson, who hopes to work in Islamic finance one day, learned Egyptian colloquial Arabic, the everyday language in Cairo.
Brian Reeves, 21, and Leigh Nusbaum, 20, incoming seniors at Brandeis University, are Jewish, speak Hebrew and have spent considerable time in Israel. Hoping to one day work on the peace settlement, they came to the Middle East last term wanting to explore the other side of the Arab-Israeli conflict while honing their language skills.
“Arabic is the new Russian,” said Ms. Nusbaum, who spent last spring studying at the American University in Cairo and wants to become a regional diplomat. Mr. Reeves chose the University of Jordan in Amman, where he learned the Levantine dialect spoken in the Palestinian territories, Syria and Lebanon. “I wanted to find out what Jews and Arabs have in common,” Mr. Reeves said. “A lot.”
Both students traveled extensively, including personal fact-finding visits to Palestinian refugee camps, as well as to Ramallah in the West Bank, all the while being discreet about their Jewish identity. Despite peace among Israel, Jordan and Egypt, strong feelings exist in all three countries when it comes to the Palestinian conflict.
To that end, Mr. Reeves quickly learned to speak in code when in public. “Israel became ‘Disneyland,’ Tel Aviv was ‘Epcot,’ and Jerusalem was called, ‘Cinderella’s Castle,’ ” he said. For Ms. Nusbaum, the experience of being delayed at the Israeli border for nearly five hours when she tried to cross from Jordan into the West Bank was both frustrating and enlightening. “I had stamps in my passport from Lebanon and Syria so they questioned me extensively before letting me through,” she said. “It gave me a real taste of what the Palestinians go through.”
(cont'd) [I/]