NMELRC Mission

NMELRC Mission
In August of 2002 the U.S. Department of Education announced the creation of the National Middle East Language Resource Center (NMELRC), the first Title VI Language Resource Center to focus solely on the languages of the Middle East. NMELRC is now in its second round of funding. Its mission is to both increase and improve opportunities for learning the languages of the Middle East. It does so through its own projects and by working with others to coordinate efforts.

NMELRC, with headquarters at Brigham Young University (BYU), represents a consortium of language experts from more than twenty universities. NMELRC works across the four major Middle East language groups (Arabic, Hebrew, Persian and Turkish) to foster cooperation and joint utilization of expertise and resources. Kirk Belnap serves as the center's director. Maggie Nassif is the administrative director. Three associate directors oversee NMELRC 2006-2010 focus areas: Mahmoud Al-Batal (University of Texas at Austin) directs teacher development efforts; Shmuel Bolozky (University of Massachusetts - Amherst) directs infrastructure building activities, and Erika Gilson (Princeton University) directs language assessment projects.