Mirroring a national trend of increased interest in Middle Eastern culture and language, a new student organization, the Middle Eastern & Islamic Studies Students Association (MEISSA), has been formed to explore the unique political and religious issues facing the embroiled region.
The core belief behind MEISSA, which already has an executive board and close to 100 interested members, is that future leaders must be equipped with an understanding of the unique politics and culture of the Islamic world. MEISSA, currently in its final stages of drafting a constitution, has a number of plans for the upcoming semester, one of which is to bring distinguished speaker Karim Kawar, Jordanian ambassador to the United States and Mexico, to campus in March.
"Boston College is graduating the future public and private leaders of the world. You can't hold a leadership position in this world without an understanding of the increasingly globalized world we live in," said Luke Tarbi, MEISSA president and A&S '05.
The creation of the club comes at a time when the threat of global terrorism has thrust Islamic culture into the view of average Americans. In the months after Sept. 11, book titles like "Unveiling Islam" and "Islam and Terror" enjoyed a meteoric rise on the bestseller lists, and Islamic scholars were ushered into the media spotlight.
Arabic is quickly becoming one of the most sought-after foreign languages on college campuses. At BC, intermediate Arabic has become the second-most popular mid-level foreign language course offering, and enrollment in Hebrew classes is also on the rise. At Georgetown University, where 370 students make up the largest Arabic program among U.S. colleges, fall enrollment is up 36 percent. At the University of Kansas, enrollment has jumped 58 percent since 2002.
The underlying principal of the organization is that future leaders must be equipped with knowledge of the diverse politics, religions, societies, and culture of the Islamic world. Tarbi emphasized that MEISSA will fill a niche on campus that hasn't been fully explored in the past. BC boasts a number of popular culture groups, he said, but few groups that use an academic approach to learning about other regions.
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