UA-R-GC-1914-01-01-1958-02-24_Page-090

Short Talk to Board of Trustees School of Oriental Studies The term Graduate Faculj expresses a hope as well as an actuality. The actuality comprises two formerly semi-autonomous units, the School of Oriental Studies and the Social Research Center, now under one administrative direction, as well as two M- k;ter of Arts programs. The first Master of Arts program is of some ten years' standing, namely, the Master of Arts in Arabic Lans;uage and Literature, and is of course given by virtue of the faculty strength of the School of Oriental Studies and the Oriental collection of the University library. The second has been made possible by the establishment of the Social Research Center, of fnich. Dr. Hamamsy has just spoken to you, since each member of the senior research staff of the Social Research Center gives one course per semester in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology and counsels with graduate students; funds for the necessary library facilities for such a program have also come from the Social Re-i~.~ search Center. Concerning this latter Master of Arts program I might add that we are now in the first year of its operation, we have been extremely selective in admissions to the program in the face of considerable demand and there are now about eight M.A. candidates. The hope is of course the strengthening of the University's offerings on the graduate level. The two M.A. programs we now offer are excellent and other graduate programs can be offered only if that same excellence is possible. A great deal of curriculum planning has been and is being done to make sure that new graduate programs will respond to a felt need of Egypt and the Middle East, will be programs which for relatively little financial outlay the contribution will be great and, to re-emphasize a key point, will from their beginnings compare on equal footing with similar programs in top-flight American universities. The School of Oriental Studies and the Social Research Center complement each other very neatly as the two nuclei of the Graduate Faculty in that the concern of both is with the Middle East. As Dr. Hamamsy has told you, the SRC has as its function research int• the contemporary life of the area and the training of persons to do this research. The School of Oriental Studies, though its approach emphasizes the humanities rather than the social sciences, is essen-tially concerned with the same two things; its approach might be described as a liberal version of the traditional approach of the Orientalist to Islamic philosophy, history, theology, linguistics, ethnography and art. This program of research and training provides the background for the contribution of the 303 to the total purpose of the University, for the SW seeks to provide, above all, an intel-lectual meeting ground at a scholarly level. The program of train-ing in the Arabic language provides Jesterners with the tools of easy communication. The courses offered in the various fields of our competence make for cultural understanding of the area to Westerners as well as to Middle Easterners themselves. Various social functions, social onl;;r because tea is served, make available an opportunity for Far Easterners, Middle Easterners and Westerners to reach situations of friendliness without which important scholar-ly exchange cannot take place. Every Monday morning, for example