Leading Scholars Join Georgetown Faculty to Bring Doha Students New Global Perspectives
The summer heat has yet to melt into cooler autumn temperatures in Doha, but for students attending Education City campuses this fall semester, classes are already in full swing. Some of these students are returning as seasoned young scholars, and some are fresh faces, just beginning their university career. At Georgetown University in Qatar (GU-Q), these new faces also include four new faculty members whose expertise spans a range of topics in international affairs and who have joined the prestigious school in a recent expansion that includes new faculty additions to various departments on campus. The joining scholars have already begun teaching courses for the Fall 2014 semester, with a curriculum that is the same offered to students of the university’s main campus in Washington D.C.
Sonia Alonso Saenz De Oger, an Assistant Professor at GU-Q, has written and spoken fluency in Spanish, English, French, Italian and German. And she will soon become very acquainted with Arabic as well, as she has very recently moved to the Middle East for the first time to join GU-Q. Her relocation to Doha marks the first move outside of Europe for her, and she cites both the school, and the country, as the main reasons for it. “Georgetown is a prestigious university with an excellent liberal arts program. This was an opportunity to get to know a different culture and a different region of the world. Qatar has become a land of opportunity for those of us dedicated to education and research.” Dr. Alonso brings her expertise in comparative European politics, federalism and nationalist conflict to the 254 students enrolled in the Fall 2014 semester. The two courses include a pro-seminar entitled “Democracies Today” and a seminar for senior and junior students entitled Democratization in Divided Societies”.
What began as a career as a British journalist in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan in the 1980s, and later as a correspondent for The Times (London) in the former Soviet Union from 1990 to 1996, has turned into a prolific academic career for Professor Anatol Lieven, who moved to Georgetown from the War Studies Department at King’s College London. From 2000-2007 he worked at think tanks in Washington DC, and remains a senior fellow of the New America Foundation there. “I’m currently teaching courses on contemporary global security issues and on US foreign policy, with future plans to teach courses on nationalism and on international relations and security in South Asia.” He has written several books, including “Ukraine and Russia: A Fraternal Rivalry”. His next research project will deal with the history of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran.
New faculty member Dr. Rory Miller, a Professor of Government at GU-Q, is currently teaching his first semester courses called “The European Union and the GCC in Comparative Perspective” and “External Intervention in the Middle East”, but his time will also be spent on writing. “Currently I am working on books on how small states, including GCC states, become powerful in the international system and on how and why external parties – Europe, America, Japan – get involved in the Arab-Israeli conflict.” His move to Qatar places him close to his research, which made the decision to join the university an easy one. “I knew Georgetown in Doha would be an exciting place to work.”
One of the newest faculty members is a Georgetown veteran. Dr. Clyde Wilcox has taught on Georgetown’s main campus in Washington D.C. for 27 years, but was inspired to continue teaching on the Doha campus instead of finishing out his teaching career in the U.S. “Over the past decade I have met with many international visitor groups and have lectured throughout the Middle East. So I came to learn more about the region, and it reawakened my academic interests at the idea of teaching a new and different set of students.” This fall, he is teaching courses in religion and politics, and social movements and interest groups. Both classes have a US focus but also include a comparative focus.
The dean of GU-Q, Dr. Gerd Nonneman, commented on the significant expansion in faculty, saying: “As we complete our first full decade of educating Qatar’s future leaders here in Georgetown’s Education City campus, we are delighted and proud that these highly regarded scholars have made the choice to join our world-class faculty. We look forward to their contributions toward our continued development as a leading education and research institution in the social sciences and humanities, helping to realize the development goals of Qatar’s national vision.”