Lyon College News Bureau
Dr. Martha Beck, associate professor of philosophy, will travel to the Middle East this summer. From May 30 through June 10, she will be attending an International Faculty Development seminar in Turkey, hosted by the Council on International Educational Exchange.
Dr. Beck said she found out about the seminar from Dean John Peek.
“I went into the Dean's office one day, asking if I could try to find opportunities to teach abroad, and he gave me the brochure of the organization that sponsors this seminar,” she said.
Though this year’s seminar is being held in Turkey, the CIEE hosts them in different locales each year.
“The CIEE sponsors trips throughout the world,” she said. This year’s seminar is called, “Civil Society, Politics, and Religion in Turkey.”
Dr. Beck’s attending the program will benefit Lyon College and its students by connecting her to people from differing walks of life, she said.
“Since I teach Humanities, I want to know about humanity, whatever that is,” Dr. Beck explained. “I want to keep in contact as much as possible with human beings from different cultural backgrounds.”
At the seminar, she will be a student and a teacher.
“I teach the ‘Western Intellectual Tradition’ class, which consists of readings in the ‘Great Books’ of the West,” she said. “I would love to read and take a class in the great books of the Muslim or Mid-Eastern Tradition, taught by someone who grew up in that tradition.”
Other ways the program will benefit the College might include having an instructor from the Middle East come to our campus as a visiting teacher, Dr. Beck said.
“In my application, I said I would like to make contacts this summer so that I could someday teach for a semester in Turkey and, perhaps, someone from Turkey could teach at Lyon,” she said. “The students would benefit greatly if they learned about Islam and the Mideast intellectual tradition from someone who grew up in that tradition. But the students will also benefit when I come back with ideas and stories from my travels and incorporate them into what I currently teach in my classes. I am really looking forward to it.”
For more information on the CIEE and its educational development opportunities, log onto www.ciee.org.