Mission Statement

 

We the students of the University of California, Irvine believe that our esteemed university desperately needs a curriculum and programs devoted specifically to the study of the Middle East and North Africa.

 

In the hope of finding an immediate remedy for this situation, we the students of the University of California, Irvine respectfully request the development of a program that will incorporate not only the history and languages of the region, but also its politics, sociology, and culture.

 

We want the opportunity, and we want future generations of UCI students to have the opportunity, to learn more about a region which is and will likely remain critical to world peace and America's national interests.

 

We want the opportunity to eventually major in Middle East and North African Studies. We appreciate that the development of a major is necessarily a lengthy and detailed process. More immediately, we wish to see the enhancement of a curriculum devoted to Middle East and North African Studies, leading to the opportunity for students to minor in this field from various extant majors.

 

We speak on behalf of both Middle Eastern and non-Middle Eastern students at UCI who realize, as most Americans already do, that the geo-political conditions in the Middle East and North Africa unwittingly, but dramatically affect our lives today as they will the lives of our children.

 

For a number of specific reasons, UCI and the Orange County community at large, need to support the development of such a program.