Mudarri Fund to Support Understanding of Arab Civilization
Thanks to a generous gift from Boston Univeristy alumnus Corinne Mudarri (DGE ’51) the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies is establishing the Corinne Mudarri Arab Civilization Fund to support innovative and impactful, student-focused programming that explores and promotes the many contributions of Arab civilization to world society.
The Corinne Mudarri Fund is designed to support thoughtful and wide-reaching programming and curricular innovation that explores and promotes the many contributions of Arab civilization, culture and society, including, but not limited to, innovations such as mathematics, science, medicine, philosophy, language, art, architecture and horticulture. The permanently endowed fund, to be administered by the Dean of the Pardee School, will provide support for annual student-focused activities, lectures and curricular innovation by faculty. This programming will be open to the entire BU community, and in some cases, to all BU friends and alumni throughout the Boston area.
Corinne Mudarri (DGE ’51) is a retired American Airlines official, where she worked for 25 years. Since retiring, she has published a Massachusetts Almanac of Arab Americans and retains a deep interest in developing better understanding of Arab civilization, especially amongst the young. Earlier, she had also endowed the Nicholas and Eugenie Mudarri Family Student Exchange Fund at Boston Univeristy, in memory of her parents.
Dean Adil Najam of the Pardee School thanked Corinne Mudarri for her generosity and her vision and the trust placed in Boston Univeristy and the Pardee School in advancing this vision.
“This is a most timely and gracious endowment gift that matches the needs of our times as well as the Pardee School’s strategic goal to educating globally-aware and globally prepared leaders of tomorrow,” he said. Moreover, he added, “I admire Corinne Mudarri’s passion and commitment to the idea that we need to provide our students with intellectually rooted and more wholistic view of key regions of the world than the narrow an stereotypical views often available in the popular media.”
Dean Najam said that the first set of activities under the banner of the Corinne Mudarri Arab Civilization Fund will take place within the current academic year. He hoped that the Middle East and North Africa Studies Program and the Institute for the Study of Muslim Societies and Civilizations, both based at the Pardee School, will play a key role in helping select and implement the inaugural activities of the Fund.