Christen Decker '07, a Middle East studies concentrator, arrived on campus a few weeks ago to discover that three professors in her program were on leave, putting a kink in her academic plans.
"I tried to be very responsible in defining my schedule, but no matter how I set it up, I was going to be at the mercy of whichever professors were going to be here," she said.
The three absent Middle East studies professors left Brown for research positions at other institutions. History Professor Engin Akarli left to be a visiting scholar at The Islamic Legal Studies Program at Harvard Law School; Muhammad Zaman, associate professor of religious studies, received a Carnegie Scholar Award and is working on a two-year research project titled "Internal Criticism and Religious Authority in Modern Islam"; and Melani Cammett, assistant professor of political science, left to be an Academy Scholar at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, part of the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies.
Middle East Studies concentrators and faculty acknowledge that this semester's course selection is not ideal, in part because replacement professors were not hired for the fall. Elliott Colla, director of Middle East Studies, said this was primarily due to the inherent structure of interdisciplinary concentrations. Middle East Studies is a program, not a department, so its faculty members are housed in separate departments, such as history and religious studies. Because of this, the leaves of absence occurred as individual events in independent departments.
Colla added that although the responsibility for hiring replacement professors falls on the individual departments, there should have been better coordination and communication with the Middle East Studies program.
"Through nobody's fault, through malice or negligence of nobody, this concentration is no longer as robust as it was," said Registrar Michael Pesta.
Although Colla said none of this year's eight Middle East studies concentrators will have trouble completing their concentration, students still expressed frustration. Leia Reisner '06 called the lack of attention to the program "pathetic." Mary Elston '07 said that when core faculty members go on leave simultaneously, a program's ability to meet the needs of its students is affected.
"When all the professors are here, they do teach effectively because they're all excellent professors," Elston said. "When there's no safety to replace them when they're gone, Brown's not able to effectively teach about the Middle East."
"Taking this semester as a snapshot of Middle East Studies, our program is laughable," said Benj Kamm '06.5. But he added that Brown has the means to have a "stellar" Middle East Studies program and suggested opening lines of communication and placing a higher priority on hiring professors with backgrounds in Middle East Studies.
Hilary Falb '06 said seniors writing theses need more guidance and direction. There is no Middle East Studies thesis-writing class offered, while most other departments and programs do offer such a class.
Other concentrators noted the importance of Middle East Studies at a time when the region plays heavily in international politics and U.S. foreign policy. They said growing student demand should result in an expanded program.
"There's a whole generation of people who want to learn about the Middle East, and Brown should facilitate this," said Kate Love '08, an international relations concentrator who said she may also concentrate in Middle East studies.
Decker pointed to enrollment in AN 115: "Middle East in Anthropological Perspective" as proof of overwhelming student demand for instruction in Middle East Studies. The class was last offered in Fall 2002, when it had an enrollment of 45. This fall, the class has 88 students, and it recently moved from a 60-person room to one that accommodates 100.
"The amount of interest from Brown students in a typically ignored area is spectacular," Decker said. "Why would the University not want to nurture and develop that?"
Colla, who was on leave last year, said he was unsure why the issue of multiple departures took so long to be exposed, but said that once it was, the administration responded quickly. Eleanor Doumato of the Watson Institute for International Studies will teach one course on Middle East history next semester, and the Department of History hopes to offer a second course in the subject as well. Carol Delaney of Stanford University will teach two courses on Islam in the spring. In addition, due to burgeoning student interest in Arabic, a third section of AB 10: "Beginning Arabic" was recently added for this semester, and AB 70: "Fourth-Year Arabic" was also created.
Although this semester is a meager one for Middle East Studies, Colla said there has been some benefit.
"The good thing about this year is that it's shown that we can't do Middle East Studies on the cheap," he said.
Colla added that a restructuring of the Middle East Studies program needs to occur in order for it to be successful in the future and for professors in the program to "work as an organized group of scholars." He said that while Brown's smaller size and current staffing priorities don't show a need for a Middle East Studies department, some other changes could be implemented.
"What we need is an institutional existence that would allow us to not depend so heavily on departments for whom Middle East research and teaching are not clear priorities," he said. "There also needs to be in place from now on a faster mechanism to replace faculty who go on leave with the best people possible."
Colla was optimistic overall about the future of Middle East Studies. He said the drive and energy to organize and create a better program has come from students.
"The spring is going to be better than this fall," Colla said. "If we can learn from this fall, it seems that there's real will on this campus to create not just a functioning Middle East studies program, but one that would be exceptional."
