Multimedia Reporting (Adler-Noland)

Naima Omar, a professor of Arabic at the University of Kansas, stands in front of a packed class of 16 students. Every seat is taken. Omar must stand. The students separate into two groups and take turns asking and answering question in Arabic. Crystal Hainstock, a small blonde student, answers a question from the other group. Omar keeps tally of the score.

“I am taking Arabic because I am in the army,” Hainstock said before class started.

Omar has a wide range of students. Most are interested in international studies. Some are in the military, but others see themselves working in the Middle East, as diplomats, journalists or anthropologists.

Interest in Arabic at the University of Kansas is booming, as it is on college campuses nationwide. At KU, enrollment in Arabic has increased 350 percent, from 15 in the spring of 2001 to 68 today. This spring the university offered two sections of beginner’s Arabic for the first time.

“We definitely do not have enough people (teachers) to support the student demand,” said Omar, who is also the language coordinator for the African and African-American Studies department at the University of Kansas. “Last semester I had to close down classes because they were full.”

Georgetown University, with the largest Arabic program in the United States, has also watched its enrollment rise, from 222 in the fall of 2002 to 415 today.

“We used to have three sections of first year Arabic and now we have 10,” said Hanah Zabarah, the undergraduate language coordinator for the Arabic department at Georgetown.

Arabic is the fourth most spoken language in the world, with approximately 422 million speakers worldwide.

The growth in the number of college students taking Arabic is a nationwide trend, beginning in the early 1990’s and accelerating with the United States’ wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“It is pretty obvious. 9-11 and the War on Iraq,” said John Eisele, executive director of the American Association of Teachers of Arabic professor at William and Mary. “People are interested because of the political instabilities and the war in the area.”

According to a report by the Chronicle of Higher Education, the number of students enrolled in Arabic has quadrupled, from 5,505 in 1998 to an estimated 21,168 in 2006.

“There has been a tremendous increase in student interest, which has led to colleges expanding and opening new programs and hiring more people,” Eisele said.

KU only offers a minor in Arabic, but the increased interest is encouraging an expansion of the program. “We are actually working towards a major right now,” Omar said.

Students are taking Arabic for a variety of reasons. Research released in 2006 by Kirk Belnap, director of the National Middle East Language Resource Center and an Arabic professor at Brigham Young University, showed that the majority of students are taking Arabic so they can talk with people who speak the language, travel to the Arab world, and better understand Arab culture and media.

“The largest number of people are interested in working at NGOs,” Belnap later said.

The government is also searching for Arabic speakers. The America Association of Teachers of Arabic Web site features job advertisements from the Department of State, Air Force, Army, CIA and NSA. The Department of State currently employs over 270 people with professional Arabic skills, but it is still looking for more.

“We are committed to increasing the number of Arabic speakers at the Department of State,” said Brenda Greenberg, a spokesperson for the department. “State department recruiters specifically target schools and organization with language programs to increase the recruitment of Arabic speakers.

There are plenty of other job opportunities available outside of the government.

“There are so many openings not necessarily related to the military,” Omar said. “There are organizations like the U.N., and even businesses in the Arab world.”

According to a ranking compiled by the World Economic Forum, from 2005 to 2007 five Arab nations – Qatar, Kuwait, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco – have gone up in global competitiveness ranking. In contrast, three Arab nations have gone down in the ranking: Bahrain, Jordan and Egypt.

“Today, the Arab world is at a critical juncture,” Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, said in a 2007 press release. “Although the region’s economies are currently very dynamic and offer tremendous business opportunities, there is no doubt that improvements to national competitiveness and closer integration with the global economy and within the region are necessary if this growth momentum is to be sustained.”

Even with the economic instabilities in the Arab world, business students are not shying away from Arabic classes.

“I think that there is a big movement towards learning Chinese and Arabic because that is where a lot of business is going to be going, and I am a business major, so I think it will definitely help me,” said Audrey Stucky, a student in Omar’s class.

The increased interest in Arabic, however, is causing trouble to the universities. They are having difficulties hiring professors and teacher assistants, since the demand for Arabic professionals is higher than the supply.

“Many of the spots are being filled by people with degrees that are not necessarily on Arabic speaking,” Eisele said.

In the foreign language edition of the Modern Language Association job information list, the number of advertisements offering Arabic positions in universities has gone from 17 in 2000-01 to 30 in 2003-04.

“There has been a real jump on the number of positions advertised,” Belnap said. “There is certainly a very strong demand for people who are well trained and have credentials to run a strong Arabic program.”

At KU, an increased curiosity towards Muslim and Middle Eastern culture has accompanied the interest in Arabic.

“Throughout the years more and more people have come to the events that we held pertaining to Islam and the Middle East,” said Fadlullah Firman, president of the Muslim Student Association.

In the last week of April, the Islamic Center and the Muslim Student Association held their annual Muslim Awareness Week.

Back at Omar’s class, the bell rings and students shuffle their books into their bags. Omar bids them goodbye. “Ma’assalama,” she says as the students walk by.