Chile, China, Ghana, Hong Kong, Japan, London, Madrid, Oxford, Paris, T??bingen and Talloires: Jumbos have a wide array of Tufts study abroad programs to choose from.
But students and professors alike have noticed a large gap in these choices: No Tufts study abroad programs exist in Arabic-speaking countries, in spite of skyrocketing Arabic language course enrollment and the increased international prominence of the Arab world today.
The Office of Study Abroad is working to change that. "We are thinking about it seriously," Associate Dean of Programs Abroad Sheila Bayne said regarding the option of implementing a Tufts abroad program in an Arabic-speaking country. "Starting a new program is a very big step on the part of the university."
TCU Senator Piyali Kundu, a freshman on the Senate Education Committee, has been working on a Senate resolution endorsing such a program. Kundu and sophomore senator Matthew LaPolice have distributed a survey to Arabic language classes in order to gauge student interest in an Arabic program abroad.
"We got back the surveys" on Thursday, Kundu said. "We haven't tallied the results yet ... but there seems to be a strong interest."
"We're planning on compiling the data so we have some good statistics to back up our proposal," Kundu added. If their resolution passes, Kundu said the Senate would send it to the administration "and see what happens from there."
Bayne said that the Office of Study Abroad is currently "looking into it in a very preliminary way."
Arabic language program director and assistant professor Amira El-Zein, who is on the Sub-Committee on Foreign Programs, a faculty committee that overseas both Tufts and non-Tufts study abroad programs, stressed that students "absolutely" want a Tufts program in an Arabic-speaking country.
"There is a huge demand from students," El-Zein said. "We are meeting with people from different areas of the Arab world and discussing it ... We are really working hard on it, and we are expecting sooner or later [for] things to be done and a program to be established."
Bayne explained that a program would probably start later rather than sooner.
"Logistically, it takes a lot of effort on the home campus as well as overseas," Bayne said. She explained that choosing the location of the program's country and school - as well as its resident director - are long processes.
"It can take a while. When we started the Tufts-in-China program, we looked at a lot of different possible partner institutions before we found the one that was right for us," she said. "First, you have to identify the type of program that you want, find your partner, find your resident director, and then - only when you know what you have to offer - can you advertise it to students."
Bayne said setting up the Tufts-in-China program took at least "three to four years, definitely."
According to Bayne and El-Zein, a country for the possible program had not yet been chosen, but student safety would be a large factor in the eventual decision. "We don't run programs in countries where there is a U.S. State Department travel advisory warning in effect, and so we need to look at a place that is relatively stable," Bayne said.
El-Zein concurred, saying that "in many countries in the Middle East, there are problems of safety, so we are taking our time ... We are not lingering, but we'd like to really explore very deeply the different possibilities."
Bayne, El-Zein and Kundu all stressed the necessity of going to an Arabic-speaking country in order to properly learn the language. "It is important to have a study abroad option if you really want to know the language," Kundu said.
El-Zein explained that Arabic especially requires an abroad experience to properly learn due to its vast differences across countries. "Arabic is different from other languages in the sense that the language that is written, that we teach here, is modern Standard Arabic, [which] is different from the spoken language," she said.
"There are variations and differences depending on the countries ... We have to be able to choose a country where the spoken language is not very far from modern standard language," El-Zein said.
Senior Prescott Gadd, who studied abroad in Egypt at the American University in Cairo, discovered this difference first-hand. "The local dialect is just so different from country to country ... The Arabic we learn here [at Tufts] is nothing like what's spoken anywhere in the Arab world," Gadd said.
Gadd said that it's "definitely" necessary to study abroad in an Arabic-speaking country in order to properly learn the language as well as the culture. "It's nice to put a face onto something that I think we all put a general belief and attitude towards," Gadd said.
Gadd's experience in Cairo broke many typical Western stereotypes of Muslims for him. "In movies, you always see them saying 'Allah' all the time, and it's kind of got this mythical, scary thing, but then when you think about it, it's just like us saying 'Oh my God' all the time," Gadd said.
Gadd believed that a Tufts abroad program would encourage many more students to study in Arabic-speaking countries: "Having a safe home base like Tufts, I think, would encourage a lot of people that were on the fence about it," he said. "Tufts is so internationally-based, not having an Arab program is kind of silly."
