The Arkansas State University Middle East Studies Committee will be holding a Middle East studies night in February.
The purpose of this event is to announce students, faculty and staff members who have been selected by the committee to receive Middle East Studies Grants of up to $5,000 for students and staff, or $7,500 for faculty, in order to travel to and conduct research, either individual or group-oriented, in one of the Middle Eastern countries designated by the university.
All applicants must submit two copies of their completed proposal to the dean of the Honors College, Gilbert Fowler, by 5 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 11.
In addition, research must be completed in its entirety by Dec. 31, 2010.
The purpose of these grants is to increase awareness and understanding of people and issues throughout the Middle East.
These funds come out of a portion of the committee's budget and have been used over the years in order to facilitate a myriad of research and study projects throughout the nation on behalf of ASU.
Louis Intres, a graduate student in the Heritage Studies department, who also teaches history, hopes his work will serve to create a more thorough understanding between the Middle East and the U.S.
"The topic of my research is the position of the Middle Eastern professionals on the topic of cultural property crime. This is the phraseology for the theft, looting and sale, on the international black market, of stolen antiques from these countries," he said. "I hope that my work will lead to a better understanding of the repatriation issues and lead to positive changes in international law and a better and more cooperative working relationship between the countries."
Gil Fowler, chair of the Middle East Studies Committee, provided some insight into both the origins of the program as well as how the committee functions.
"Our job is to promote Middle Eastern studies and life there. There are roughly eight to 10 members, comprised of representatives from each college. The committee was formed after Saudi Arabia gave the state of Arkansas a grant of about eight or nine million dollars, as for about three or four years, we had about 300 to 400 Saudi Arabian students and family members here at ASU," he said. "Of this total money, eight or nine hundred thousand dollars of it went to ASU.
"We (the committee) agreed to take a portion of that money and use it within a mechanism to benefit the community in order to promote understanding between the two countries. The initial grant was $900,000, we invested it and have about $50,000 or $60,000 to work with for distribution, but it can vary from year to year due to market values."
On the subject of timetables, in order for the grant recipients to accomplish their travel and necessary findings, Fowler had this to say.
"The travel needs to be completed by the end of the year, but the data analysis can be done for as long as it takes," he said. "The grants are funded in February, we prefer to have all financial obligations completed by December because we work on a calendar year basis. We give out grants until we run out of money."
When all of the applications are submitted, the committee ranks them in order of importance and makes decisions on what to support and what not to support for the upcoming year.
The committee also has a general policy that says they will not fund a person's work more than once every three years.
Fowler said they also try to give preferences to those who have not been funded in those past three years.
"Finally, we would like to encourage those students that are working on grants over the holidays in order to be prepared for submission in January," he said.