Students from Brandeis and its partner institution in East Jerusalem, Al Quds University, will take a joint 10-day trip to Turkey this August to develop relationships between students, senior administrators said The partnership between the two schools took off after a February 2006 meeting between University President Jehuda Reinharz and Al Quds President Sari Nusseibeh in Jerusalem. Since then, several Al Quds students and one administrator have visited Brandeis, and Student Union President Alison Schwartzbaum '08 met with Al Quds officials during a trip to Israel last winter. The trip to Turkey is the next effort to strengthen ties between the schools.

Dan Terris, the director of the Center for Ethics, Justie and Public Life, said the partnership is financed by a $500,000 grant from the Ford Foundation.

"I would imagine the trip as a whole will combine some classroom work, some kind of group building work and some expeditions to sites of historical or cultural interest," Terris said.

Assistant Dean of Student Life Alwina Bennett, one of the trip's organizers, said the trip will include intellectual and social aspects. She said her goal is to ensure participants "find common experiences [that] allow them to engage on a peer level."



Bennett said she and the other organizers of the trip-Terris and Elaine Wong, associate dean of arts and sciences-are reviewing applications, which were due March 12, and expect to notify students before April break.

Wong would not state the exact number of applicants, but said the selection process would be "very difficult." She said the applicant pool includes students from "all different disciplines and all different class years." While the application asked students to explain their interest in the Middle East, Wong said the program would not count for academic credit or toward any major because of its short duration.

Terris said they chose Turkey as a "neutral site" and one that both groups could travel to easily.

Michaele Whelan, associate provost for academic affairs, will accompany the group to manage the trip's academic component, she wrote in an e-mail to the Justice. She declined to comment on the trip's curriculum until she finalizes it with Said Zedani, the vice-president of academic affairs at Al Quds.

Looking ahead, Terris said he expects the trip to become a tradition. "We really hope that this is a pilot and one that we would be able to continue in some way regularly," he said.

He said Reinharz and Nusseibeh, are eager to include undergraduate students in the partnership's activities, but added that it's been difficult because of volatile conditions in the Middle East and the Palestinian students' difficulty in obtaining visas.

Last spring, Prof. Muhammad Dajani, the founder and director of Al Quds' American Studies program, and several of his American Studies students, spent two weeks at Brandeis to study and meet with professors.

"We want to provide a nonpolitical, nonconference, nondemonstrative way to make an impact," Reinharz told The New York Times last year regarding the partnership.