[EDLING:1200] Learning Arabic, and much more

[Francis M Hult]

Via ILR...

> <http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.arabic19jan19,1,671826
> 9.story>
> http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.arabic19jan19,1,6718269
> .story 
>
> Learning Arabic, and much more 
> By JUSTIN MARTIN 
> Originally published January 19, 2006 
> AMMAN, JORDAN // Much has been said in the last five years about the lack of
> Arabic speakers in the United States, especially those willing and qualified
> to work for the federal government. After 9/11, America scrambled to find
> qualified linguists to help fight terrorism. 
> 
> Long overshadowed by the more easily learned romance languages, Arabic got
> short shrift at most American colleges and universities. With the rare
> exceptions of schools such as Georgetown University and Middlebury College
> in Vermont, which has been recognized for its intensive summer language
> program, American universities simply did not have advanced Arabic programs
> or the professors to lead them. 
> 
>        
> Now, because of the job opportunities Arabic provides, those universities
> are overrun with students wanting to study Arabic but are unable to
> accommodate many of them. 
> 
> But American students have not given up. Instead, they are traveling to the
> Middle East in large numbers to study Arabic. Determined to meet the demands
> for Arabic speakers in the current governmental and business job markets,
> they have migrated eastward by semesters to Arabic schools in the Middle
> East and North Africa, on year- or summer-long programs. 
> 
> Universities in Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Morocco and even far-flung Yemen,
> for example, are admitting American students wanting to study Arabic,
> Islamic culture or Middle Eastern media. For the first time, universities in
> these countries are luring large numbers of Americans from the more
> traditional study-abroad destinations in Europe. 
> 
> American graduate, undergraduate and even some high school students are
> flooding the Arabic language school at the University of Jordan in Amman, so
> intensively that the university recently cut the ribbon on a
> multimillion-dollar language center dedicated solely to teaching Arabic to
> foreigners. 
> 
> Before 9/11, during the 2000-2001 academic year, 21 Americans among 169
> students were studying Arabic at the University of Jordan's language center.
> By 2003-2004, the number increased to 85 among 382 total students, and in
> the last full academic year, about 120 Americans were enrolled among 480
> students studying Arabic at the center. 
> 
> In Egypt, the American University in Cairo is so crowded with American
> students wanting to study Islamic civilization and Arabic that university
> officials recently broke ground on a new campus, which will double the size
> of the old one and will be built outside Cairo. Part of the reason was to
> accommodate the growing number of Americans. 
> 
> Unable to locate and hire adequate numbers of Arabic professors, some U.S.
> colleges and universities, to their credit, are doing whatever they can to
> help facilitate seasonal forays for students. 
> 
> Georgetown University recently established a branch of its School of Foreign
> Service in Doha, Qatar. The University of Virginia forged ties with Jordan's
> Yarmouk University, where students can get full academic credit for Arabic
> courses. Similarly, Emory University in Atlanta leads an Arabic school in
> Cairo, and Chicago's DePaul University announced in July the construction of
> a sister campus in Jordan. 
> 
> An added obvious benefit of this trend is the face-to-face interaction being
> experienced by a new generation of Americans. Shared classrooms cultivate
> understanding in a common language. Helen Keller wrote that "the highest
> result of education is tolerance," which, if true, means that a generation
> more tolerant and better informed about the Arab-Muslim world is climbing
> America's ranks. 
> 
> Former presidential adviser David R. Gergen recently wrote about some of the
> shortcomings of the baby boom generation, arguing that most Americans are
> dissatisfied with the quality of leadership in the United States. But he
> said that "eyes turn for help to those just behind the boomers, the leaders
> on the rise." 
> 
> Will they be better? Is help on the way? If a young generation of hungry
> American students can make the most of their extraordinary education abroad
> in terms of national security as well as Middle Eastern relations with the
> United States, the answer to these questions could very well be a resounding
> yes. 
> 
> Justin Martin is an American Fulbright Scholar living in Amman and a
> doctoral student at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. His
> e-mail is martinjd at email.unc.edu. 
> 
>        
> 
> 
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