Northeastern is seeking to create stronger academic collaborations on issues related to the Middle East with the creation of a new Center for Peace, Culture, and Development.

Through the center, the university hopes to forge improved international partnerships, stronger research initiatives, and deeper collaborations among programs such as business, science, biotechnology, and engineering.

The center will be led by Middle East expert Denis Sullivan, a political science professor who recently spent a year and a half on leave at Bentley College, where he oversaw that institution's study-abroad program and worked on globalization initiatives.

Sullivan took a lead role on the Northeastern campus following the events of September 11, 2001, when he oversaw seminars that examined the terrorist attack and its ramifications. He has also led groups of students to annual seminars in Cairo, Egypt.

The center was inspired by Provost Ahmed Abdelal, who founded a similar center at Georgia State University before coming to Northeastern.

According to the center's mission statement, strategic partnerships formed on and off campus will help strengthen the university's involvement with issues related to the people, culture, and states in the Middle East.

The university will partner with the Fulbright Commission; Cairo and American Universities in Egypt; Ben Gurion University, in Israel; and Yeditepe University, in Turkey.

Sullivan says the Center for Peace, Culture, and Development's initiatives will include visiting scholars programs, summer institutes, teacher training, internships and study-abroad opportunities, speaker series, and web publications.

This Mideast center is one of four new centers on the drawing board, according to Abdelal, who also hopes to create centers related to Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

Once it takes root, the new center will be one of approximately eight large Mideast research centers in the United States, Sullivan says.

Already, faculty and university officials have been laying groundwork for an academic collaboration with Ben Gurion University. An eight-member delegation from Ben Gurion visited Northeastern in February to identify common research and teaching areas. Northeastern representatives had visited Ben Gurion the year before

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