On May 12th, the UNC Area Studies Centers – CMEIS, the Carolina Asia Center, the African Studies Center, the Center for European Studies, the Center for Slavic, Eurasian, and East European Studies, and the Institute for the Study of the Americas – worked together to host an Area Studies Symposium. Centered around our collective collaborative work with community colleges and minority serving institutions across North Carolina, the symposium offered educators an opportunity to share their work and reaffirm the importance of global education resources in our state. The area studies centers at UNC offer specialized support in curriculum development, research, language instruction, and study abroad to educators at smaller NC institutions, and are thus instrumental in making regional expertise available to students and educators in rural and historically underserved parts of our state.

CMEIS welcomed Farida Badr, professor of Arabic at Durham Technical Community College, to represent the impact of our Center’s work at the community college level. We are proud to support the Arabic program at Durham Tech, which makes high-quality Arabic language instruction available to over 18,000 students in the triangle area.

Given the precarity of the federal funding structure upon which our Center relies, the Center is seeking community support to ensure Professor Badr’s important work at Durham Tech can continue. If you are able, please consider donating to our gift fund today.