The College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHASS) recently received a generous gift from an anonymous donor to establish the Akram Khater Distinguished Professorship in Arab Migration Studies. It will support the work of a professor of any rank in Arab migration studies within the Department of History who will also serve in the college’s Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies, which is dedicated to researching Lebanese immigrants and sharing that knowledge with the scholarly community.
“Gifts like this one that empower us to attract world-class thought leaders to our faculty are transformative,” said Deanna Dannels, dean of the college. “Establishing this distinguished professorship also enables us to enhance our national reputation, advance innovative teaching and research by our faculty, enrich our students’ classroom experience and drive human-centered change.”
The new professorship honors Akram Khater, a University Faculty Scholar, history professor, the Khayrallah Chair in Lebanese Diaspora Studies, and director of the Khayrallah Center.
“This gift also helps CHASS reach a key strategic priority of becoming the most innovative college of humanities and social sciences,” Khater said. “It creates more opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration within CHASS and the university and expands and advances the mission of the Khayrallah Center in preserving and sharing the histories of Lebanese migrations and diasporas.”
The Khayrallah Center was established in 2015, thanks to a generous gift from Dr. Moise Khayrallah for whom the center is named. Since then the center, with its growing archive, innovative research and focus on community outreach and scholarly development, has developed exponentially and gained a reputation as a leader in migration studies.
The center disseminates information about the history of Arab American migrants often through scholarly awards, documentaries, exhibits, searchable databases and digital humanities projects, among other developments. Recent projects include The Migration of Hanna Gaith, Arab American Labor and Index of Arab American Archives.
“Establishing the distinguished professorship in Arab Migration Studies will enable us to attract and retain the best scholars in migration studies, whose research and teaching will enhance our existing projects and recruit graduate students, especially those from the Middle East,” Khater said. “It will also allow us to undertake new initiatives in course development, community outreach, public history, archival collection and digital humanities.”
As examples, Khater said the center can expand the geographic reach of its archives and research beyond North America to Central and South America where there are significant Lebanese diasporas. And it can broaden its perspective from early Arab immigrants who left the Middle East between the late 19th and early 20th centuries to later immigrants such as the wave of Lebanese immigrants that came to the Americas after 1975.
This gift, he added, will also allow the center to share new stories in novel ways with more audiences.
Those efforts include more in-person engagement opportunities with Lebanese communities around the country and the world, such as having a presence at Lebanese festivals, talks, exhibitions and film screenings. The center is also starting an annual summer intensive for migration scholars to further disseminate its research and history projects in the academic community.
“The distinguished professorship, combined with these efforts, will significantly raise the profile of the Khayrallah Center, both nationally and internationally,” said Khater.
This post was originally published in College of Humanities and Social Sciences.
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