Quicklinks: Home Page
OUTREACH
As a national resource center, another major goal of CMENAS is to provide public educational outreach, including to K-16 schools. For example, CMENAS provides school-based outreach and curricular resource materials on the Middle East to K-12 classrooms across the state. Among the resource collections for use by K-12 educators are books, films, journals, magazines, slides, displays of costumes and traditional handicrafts, as well as other materials. In addition, more than a dozen CMENAS Middle East curricular units and lesson plans are available to educators through the national website Outreach World. CMENAS also partners with postsecondary and community institutions, such as libraries and local book fairs, to broaden its impact on constituencies beyond K-12 education.
CMENAS works closely with UM's Schools of Education on a variety of programs designed to train K-14 educators and educate K-12 students from Michigan and other states. An ongoing collaboration has led to a series of internet-based courses, including an Arab-Israeli conflict simulation, a “Place Out of Time” simulation on Muslim Spain, and Earth Odyssey programs, in which high school students from across the nation interact with correspondents in Uzbekistan, Morocco, or Algeria.
CMENAS is also directly linked to institutions of higher education in the Middle Eastern and North African region. In addition to its study abroad program with American University in Cairo, Middle East Technical University and Bilkent University in Ankara, and Bogaziçi University in Istanbul, CMENAS previously administered a faculty exchange program with two universities in Algeria. Through that exchange, UM faculty and graduate students were able to study and lecture in Algiers and Oran, and UM students were able to enjoy courses offered by visiting Algerian faculty. A number of CMENAS faculty members have also taken groups of K-14 educators on study tours to North Africa, including Algeria, Morocco and Andalusian Spain, through U.S. Department of Education-sponsored Fulbright programs.
