Outreach

Educational Outreach

The educational outreach programs of CMES serve California school teachers and school children through a variety of media. In collaboration with Berkeley's Office of Resources for International and Area Studies (ORIAS), and often with other area-studies units, the center coordinates one-day workshops or one-week teacher institutes to address subjects of importance to elementary, middle-school, or high-school students. The recent federally funded Interactive University Project, which addressed Internet-based approaches to studying Islam as a global religion, involved both students and teachers in creating curriculum modules to be utilized on-line. Over the past fifteen years, CMES has created thirteen curriculum packets designed to assist pre-collegiate teaching about various aspects of Middle East culture. These popular packets are available through the ORIAS office.

CMES in the Bay Area

Since they are free and open to the public, all scholarly events sponsored by CMES have an outreach component. Generally, about one-quarter to one-third of the people attending CMES-sponsored lectures — and most of the people attending CMES-sponsored film, music, and museum programs — come from the general Bay Area community. To increase awareness of its activities, the center's biannual newsletter reaches a Middle East-related community of 1,700 people throughout the United States, Europe, and the Middle East. In addition, the center's lecture and special-events mailing list includes more than 350 people who do not study or work on the Berkeley campus. CMES also responds to community requests for speakers on a wide variety of subjects. Recently, the center has made available specialists to speak to groups as diverse as an adult community center and a pre-natal care facility.

CMES in the Nation and Abroad

CMES maintains ties to many national and international organizations. Its status as a National Resource Center fosters cooperative relationships with other major Middle East centers and programs across the country. CMES holds institutional membership in the following scholarly organizations: the American Institute of Yemeni Studies, the Middle East Studies Association (as a founding member), the American Research Institute in Turkey, the American Institute for Maghribi Studies, and the American Association for Teachers of Turkish. The Department of Near Eastern Studies holds memberships in the Center for Arabic Study Abroad, the American Research Center in Egypt, and American Association for Teachers of Persian.

CMES on the Web

The Internet provides still another forum for connecting CMES to scholars, students, teachers, and interested people throughout the world. The center's extensive Website provides information on the center, its public programs, research projects and programs, and links to other sites of interest to our many constituencies. These include the College of Environmental Design's SPIRO database of images (including more than 1,000 images of art and architecture from the Islamic World), the Islamic Cities Historic Map Collection (ICHMC), the ORIAS Website containing the instructional modules for learning about Islam through the Internet, information on Berkeley's extensive Islamica and Judaica library collections, links to all other major university-based Middle East Center Websites worldwide, and Middle East country Websites. CMES's Website receives nearly 30,000 "hits" per year.