Institute Welcomes Fulbright Scholar

08/27/2013 

A Visiting Fulbright Scholar from Morocco will join SUNY Cortland’s faculty for the fall semester to study the College’s Institute for Civic Engagement as a model for service-learning and the creation of strong campus and community partnerships.

Larbi Touaf, an associate professor of English at Université Mohammed I Oujda, will share his expertise in civic engagement in the Middle East and North Africa, as well as in many other areas of personal research interest, throughout the semester.

In turn, he will analyze SUNY Cortland as an American model of institutionalized civic engagement from which his university in Morocco can learn.

“We are very excited to have Dr. Touaf with us for the semester,” said Richard Kendrick, the director of the College’s Institute for Civic Engagement and a professor of sociology/anthropology. “His visit is an excellent opportunity to open a dialogue about community and civic engagement here at SUNY Cortland and internationally.

“We are also very interested in learning more about Moroccan systems of higher education and the potential for developing campus and community connections in that country.”

Touaf is the founder and coordinator of the Research Group on Identity and Difference at his home university and the coordinator of a recent European Union project on social entrepreneurship.

His research interests and areas of expertise include postcolonial studies; English and French languages; Maghreb, or Northwest African, and Middle Eastern studies; and youth civic engagement. He has five edited volumes along with numerous articles and book chapters, published in both English and French, to his credit.

Touaf first visited the United States as a teenager and returned for graduate work at the University at Buffalo. He was first introduced to SUNY Cortland in 2011 while he served as a Visiting Fellow in Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.

He holds a bachelor’s degree from Université Ibn Zohr Agadir in Morocco and master’s and doctoral degrees from Université de Paris-Sorbonne in France.

Touaf is scheduled to speak Wednesday, Nov. 13, on the topic of “Democracy and Women’s Rights after the Arab Spring,” as part of SUNY Cortland’s 2013-14 Rozanne M. Brooks Lecture Series. He is open to speaking with classes or campus groups on topics such as community engagement abroad, the Arab Spring or the Middle East and North Africa in general.

For more information, contact Matthew Whitman, the outreach coordinator for SUNY Cortland’s Institute for Civic Engagement, at 607-753-2298.