Qatar Foundation to provide funding for three endowed professorships

October 25, 2010

DOHA – The Qatar  Foundation will provide funding support for three endowed professorships  at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, USA. The new  professorships will be named after the Emir of Qatar, His Highness  Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani.

The three Northwestern  University professorships – in the areas of journalism, communication,  and Middle East studies – reflect the vision of Qatar Foundation to  partner with institutions of academic excellence, such as Northwestern  University, to build a knowledge-based society in Qatar and unlock human  potential.

Hamid Naficy, a professor from Northwestern  University’s Evanston, Illinois, campus who is  currently teaching at  Northwestern’s campus in Qatar, is the recipient of one of the  professorships.   He has been named Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani  Professor in Communication.

“For many centuries, and throughout  the world, endowed professorships have provided important support for  colleges and universities. We very much appreciate the funding of these  chairs by Qatar Foundation, which will enable Northwestern to enhance  its programs in areas we have identified as high priorities for the  university,” said Northwestern University President Morton Schapiro.

Naficy  is a leading authority on cinema and television in the Middle East.  Prof. Naficy has produced many educational films and experimental videos  and has published extensively about theories of exile and displacement,  exilic and diaspora cinema and media, and Iranian and Third World  cinemas.

His many publications include such well-known titles as An Accented CinemaThe Making of Exile CulturesOtherness and the Media: The Ethnography of the Imagined and the ImagedIran Media Index, and the AFI anthology, Home, Exile, Homeland.

Also  named to these new endowed professorial chairs are Frank Mulhern,  professor and associate dean of research at the Medill School of  Journalism at Northwestern’s Evanston campus, who has been named the  Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani Professor in the Medill School of  Journalism and Carl Petry, professor of history in the Weinberg College  of Arts and Sciences in Evanston, who has been named the Sheikh Hamad  Bin Khalifa Al-Thani Professor in Middle East Studies.

Mulhern  conducts research on the impact of media technologies on marketing and  media content and the changing business models for news and advertising.  He has published numerous studies on marketing communications,  econometric analysis of communications effects, media technology and the  integration of communications across different audiences.

Petry  specializes in the Islamic World and North Africa, medieval and modern  Egypt and the social history of the Middle East.   He is the author of  “The Civilian Elite of Cairo in the Later Middle Ages,” a study based on  biographies of 5,000 persons active in the administrative and  scholastic communities of that city.

Northwestern University and  Qatar Foundation have been partners since 2008, when Northwestern  joined an elite cadre of world-class American universities that have  established branch campuses at Qatar Foundation’s Education City.

Northwestern  University in Qatar offers undergraduate degrees in Communication and  Journalism. The Medill School’s Journalism program prepares students for  careers in print, broadcast and online news media, while the School of  Communication offers a major in Media Industries and Technologies,  preparing students for management and creative roles in the  communication and media industries, and for responsible civic  participation in global media.

With liberal arts courses  provided by Northwestern’s Weinberg College of Arts and Science, both of  these programs replicate the quality of courses offered at  Northwestern’s home campus in Evanston, and graduates of the Qatar  branch campus are awarded the same degree as their counterparts in the  U.S.