Annual Report 2010 | 2011 - Columbia Global Centers

A Message from Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah
The poet William Butler Yeats once wrote that “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” Since
2009, the Columbia University Middle East Research Center (CUMERC) has lit countless fires across Jordan with
studies and policy proposals, workshops and internships, seminars, roundtables, and partnerships.
In its first months, CUMERC’s purview has been as wide as it has been deep. It has energized the arts, with film
and music projects that teach and inspire, as much as entertain. It has helped expand and enrich the work of our
Teachers’ Academy, providing training programs and partnerships that have made it a leader in the Arab World.
Our young people have had access to internships. Our students and scholars have crossed cultural barriers, as well
as disciplinary boundaries, opening themselves to new thinking and horizons. Workshops on conflict resolution
in school classrooms, courses on financial securities, partnerships with ecology experts… the list carries on into
the fields of social work, family health, child protection, and Arabic language study. From such a small beginning,
CUMERC has made an incredible impact to the benefit of Jordan and the region.
It is in this spirit of educational exploration that I support CUMERC’s adventure into new fields of research in
Jordan. As the future unfolds, I am excited that, together, we will be sparking more fires in the years to come.
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