Students pile out of two charter buses and onto the streets of Washington, eager to spend a day out of the classroom. The Washington Islamic Center, the oldest Mosque in city, stands in front of them. It is a place where thousands of Muslims go to worship and has been described as the "center of Islam in America."
Abassie Jarr-Koroma, the mosque's tour guide and librarian, reminds students they must remove their shoes before entering. Some enter and immediately sit quietly on the floor while others chat in Arabic, but everyone gazes around in awe at their surroundings.
The walls of the Mosque are lined with elaborate Turkish tiles and the ceiling is covered with Quran passages painted by Egyptian painters. According to Jarr-Koroma, everything in the room has been donated by countries throughout the Arab world.
For the next 30 minutes, Jarr-Koroma talks to students about Islamic beliefs and practices and the religion's cultural importance. After a quick question-and-answer session and walk around the mosque, students pack back onto the buses and head for the Saudi Arabian embassy.
As they arrive, they are greeted and given plates filled with traditional Saudi cuisine, cooked just for them by the embassy's chefs. After the meal and a movie presentation on Saudi life and government, five students are selected and asked to leave the room: They return dressed head-to-toe in traditional Saudi clothes.
This is by far their favorite day of class.
The students are here as a part of the university's Summer Intensive Language Institute, a fast-paced, eight-week-long version of beginning and intermediate level language classes. It's a Wednesday, which means the students will be out of the classroom actually experiencing Arabic culture on field trips.
Besides the cultural day, students spend the majority of their time in a traditional classroom. For about six hours a day, they learn and review Arabic grammar and vocabulary. When the class is all over, students will have completed 12 language credits - which fulfills most majors' language requirements.
Laila Kamal, an Arabic language lecturer, said the success of the program doesn't rely entirely on grammar and mechanics.
"It's not only language, it's culture," she said. "We are just trying to show them what is in the Arab world. It's different when you actually experience it."
Many students said they were interested in Arabic specifically because of its current importance in world affairs.
Ben Lane, a junior linguistics major, said he is studying Arabic for a challenge and for its world impact. He wants to study the language abroad and eventually work as a military translator or in a security field.
Many students were interested in Arabic to help them in the professional world. According to Testudo, the Arabic classes were the most highly subscribed of the language program with 38 students enrolled, according to Testudo.
Lane, a transfer student, said his reasons for coming to the university were partly due to the fact that Arabic classes like this are offered.
The Intensive Language Institute began in the summer of 2002 and also features classes in Spanish and Italian, in which 17 and 11 students are enrolled, respectively. Hebrew classes were also offered, but canceled due to lack of interest.
All of the intensive language classes end next week and students will participate in a final celebration on Friday that will feature entertainment and food from all three cultures.
As for the future of the program, more opportunities appear to be opening up for students looking to study other languages.
Chuck Wilson, the director of summer programs, said one of the main goals is to offer more of an immersion program where students would live together, and have resident advisors who were fluent in the target language.
He also said the university may be adding Farsi to next summer's program. Japanese and Chinese are also a possibility, but Wilson wasn't sure if they would be implemented in the near future.
As for the next step, most students wanted to continue with their Arabic studies but expressed dismay with the university for not offering the option to major in Arabic.
But for students like Lane, his large interest in Arabic helps him to remain hopeful for the future of the program. He said the university administration should take the creation of a major seriously to attract new students who may also be interested in Arabic.
"A lot of it would benefit the university in general, because it's about competition," Lane said. "People come here from other schools to learn."