Interested undergraduates will soon be able to devote their academic careers to one of the globe's most troubled regions.
Penn officials announced last Tuesday the creation of a Modern Middle Eastern Studies program.
The inter-disciplinary program -- which will be directed by Political Science professor Robert Vitalis -- will span Middle Eastern languages, history, political science, sociology, economics and archaeology.
The program will be offered as both a major and a minor starting in September 2007.
The program -- which has been in development for three years -- was devised in response to students' concerns that they could not study as many areas of the Middle East as they wanted, according to Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations Department Chairman Roger Allen.
The Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations major, for example, restricts students to the humanities, leaving little room for the social sciences outside of a second major or a minor.
"The fact that NELC focuses on languages and the humanities is great and all, but I would like ... the opportunity to take more political science courses about the Middle East," said College sophomore Fares Samra, who is double majoring in NELC and Biological Basis of Behavior.
And the new program is intended to whet the appetite of students exactly like Samra.
"It's a kind of smorgasbord major," Allen said.
The program will not be administered through an academic department, but rather through the Middle East Center, which offers academic, research and career opportunities.
Kent Peterman, the School of Arts and Sciences' director of academic affairs, noted that the center "has built itself up" over the past few years.
"We've developed strengths in that area that we want to offer to undergraduate majors," Peterman said.
But the framework of the new program may be familiar to some.
When devising the program, directors looked very closely at the East Asian and African studies programs, "copying [them] shamelessly," according to Allen.
Although there are already appropriate courses and qualified professors available for the program, officials say, they expect some new courses to be developed for it.
Some professors have already begun mapping out potential new courses for the program.
Political Science professor Ian Lustick, for example, said he would continue with his current course on international politics in the Middle East, but would be open to devising an introductory course on Middle Eastern society and culture.
Similar programs are offered at New York University and the University of Michigan, and Harvard University and Dartmouth College offer equivalent majors.
"The Middle East is going to be hugely important in the foreseeable future," said Allen, who noted that "9/11, ... oil and Islam" have contributed to the spur of interest in Middle Eastern studies.
