Word: khalidi
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
When the new chair was established last spring. Rosovsky said that the gift reached from a search by the Center for Middle Eastern Studies for funds to support Khalidi's work, and that upon the Palestinian's retirement a new professorship would be established...
...Khalidi is an expert in Mideast politics and has held academic posts all over the world. He had served as a visiting professor at Harvard for four years until his appointment as a half-time research fellow last February
...added that although the University cannot be said to have sold its honor" because the length of Khalidi's appointment is limited to no more than 10 years, "the University merely refused its honor for five to seven years in return for the million dollars from Saudi Arabia "He said yesterday" if appointments are going to be determined in that way then the University is being demgrated...that is the kind of thing that makes me bristle...
...Saudi Arabian contribution generated confusion and criticism. In May of 1982, Harvard accepted a $1 million gift from a Saudi businessman to establish a professorship in contemporary Arab Studies that some faculty members of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies said was effectively conditional on the appointment of Walid Khalidi, previously a visiting professor and reportedly an affiliate of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), to an unusual open-ended research post. As one official close to the center, who declined to be identified, described it last May, Harvard and the unnamed donor had an unwritten understanding that "the appointment...
Dean of Faculty Henry Rosovsky denies that the Khalidi appointment was a prerequisite to receiving the donation, calling the professorship "a normal, no-strings chair." Still, the controversy surrounding the Khalidi appointment showcased the special difficulties attendant on gifts from foreign nations, particularly those with cultures and governments very different from our own. Edward L. Keenan, dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) and outgoing director of the center for Middle Eastern Studies, notes that problems may arise when foreign donors do not understand Harvard's policy of accepting only donations without conditions: "After all, American philanthropy...