American Studies
Center
American Studies
Center
at the University of Bahrain
University of Bahrain
The American Studies Center
A Brief History
by: Dr. John Hillis, ASC Program Director
The American Studies Center of the University of Bahrain was established in May 1998 as a subdivision of the Department of English Language and Literature and offered its first courses in September 1998. The Center was inaugurated by then President of the University Dr. Mohamed Al-Ghatam and then U.S. Ambassador Johnny Young. An inaugural lecture was delivered by Ambassador Young on the “African-American Experience.”
The Center was supplied by the U.S. Embassy with a large selection of reference books, journals, VHS and DVD recordings, computers, and other materials. Periodic grants from the Embassy have enabled the Center to upgrade its facilities with additional equipment and add to its materials. The University supplied a spacious room located near the English Department, along with bookcases, desks, and additional furniture.
The core of the American Studies Center is its Minor program. Students from the College of Arts can take American Studies as a minor, and most who do so are English majors. The Minor program consists of ten courses, both required and elective, covering American history, politics, society, literature, and culture. Courses are staffed by members of the English Department as well as guest instructors on Fulbright fellowships.
In addition to academic courses, the Center regularly offers guest lectures, workshops, seminars, and symposia. Highlights over the years have been a lecture by Dr. James Zogby, President of the Arab American Institute, a symposium entitled “Diverse Voices in American Literature” featuring scholar-authors from Cornell and the University of California, and a roundtable discussion with New York Times foreign affairs correspondent Thomas Friedman.
Other activities include lectures by visiting Fulbright scholars, roundtable discussions with current U.S. Ambassadors, and presentations by members of the local community. The ASC has also participated in several video-conferences, including the inaugural use of the University’s facility in the e-Learning Center.
Over the years, the American Studies Center has offered scholarship opportunities through the U.S. Embassy for students to travel to and study in the United States. Five students have gone on to earn their BA degrees in American universities after two years at the University of Bahrain. A number of students have participated in summer Middle East Partner Initiatives; two students have recently returned from one-semester Undergraduate Exchange Programs, and last year two students completed a year as Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistants in Wellesley and Boston University, respectively.
Grants from the U.S. Embassy have enabled a group of ASC students to visit regional American Studies programs: last year to the American University in Cairo and most recently to the University of Jordan. All of these activities are designed to foster better communication and understanding, primarily between Bahraini students and their American counterparts, but also between regional American Studies programs.
The Center maintains an active website (http://userspages.uob.edu.bh/asc/) and twice a year publishes the ASC News magazine. A recently established ASC Alumni Association is designed to further publicize the activities of the Center to the wider Bahraini community.
Currently, approximately sixty students are minoring in American Studies, and to date fifty students have graduated from the program, most of whom have gone on to find gainful employment in the public sector—as teachers, for example—or in a variety of occupations in the private sector. Some have continued to pursue graduate degrees. A recent graduate earned her MA degree at Bowling Green State University on a Fulbright scholarship, and one of the earliest graduates is soon to earn her Ph.D. at Princeton University.
While the American Studies Center has never been able to guarantee a job to those who participate in the program, the quality of education it offers, as well as numerous opportunities for extracurricular learning, has produced graduates who are highly sought after and well-prepared for a diversity of positions in the marketplace. The goal of the Center is to instill in its students a pattern of lifetime critical learning that will dissolve stereotypes and promote the kind of understanding needed increasingly in a globalized world. It is hoped that in the first ten years of its existence the Center has gone some way toward realizing that goal, and that the future will see further achievements in the same direction.
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Contact the American Studies Center (973) 17438746
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