
The Ohio State University Middle East Studies Center
Area Studies Center of the Office of International Affairs
About MESC
The Middle East Studies Center (MESC) is one of the 19 US Department of Education Title VI National Resource Centers (NRC), and is consistently funded. Since its designation as a National Resource Center in 1988, it has been renewed in the 1991, 1994, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2006, and 2010 cycles, for a total of 22 years.
MESC is a facilitator of Middle East studies on local, regional, national, and international levels, providing teaching, resources, services, and consultation to a number of key constituencies: students of all ages, collegiate faculty, alumni, business leaders, military and government, P-16 educators, and others. MESC supports scholarship at OSU by funding faculty lines, supplementing the Middle East Studies library collections, providing between 15-25 Foreign Language and Areas Studies Fellowships every year, leveraging university funds to co-sponsor academic and educational events, engaging freshman at OSU through the First Year Experience Program, and aiding OSU's minority recruitment efforts at local schools and community colleges.
Current Title VI priorities include increasing minority participation in internationally oriented careers, and further engagement with community colleges and historically black colleges and universities (HBCU). MESC is responding by increasing contact with elementary, middle and high school students of color, continuing efforts with undergraduate students, and by strengthening or forging new partnerships with community colleges and HBCUs in the region.
The functions of knowledge creation and dissemination are at the core of the Center’s mission, which is supported by 57 faculty members (47 tenured) who focus on the Middle East and the Greater Islamic World from diverse perspectives and in balanced ways. The Middle East Studies Center (MESC) has been dynamic in its responses on campus and in the national scholarly community, helping to synthesize research and identify best practices for teaching and academic collaboration. Its current program goals include expanding the Center's military outreach, and greater collaboration with community colleges, historically black colleges and universities, and forging stronger connections with pre-collegiate schools with large numbers of students who are from underrepresented groups.
There are a number of resources, including textual, audio and visual items that we hope you will find useful. Use the list at the left to navigate to research and teaching resources, news on recent developments in Middle East-focused scholarship, upcoming events, professional development and funding opportunities, courses and programs, Middle East language resources, education and media services, and many others.
About Title VI: http://www.usglobalcompetence.org/index.html
About National Resource Centers: http://www.nrcweb.org/