Johnson County Community College
Press Release

College Information and Publications
913-469-8500
Julie Haas, Director, ext. 3120
Peggy Graham, Writer, ext. 3425
Tyler Cundith, Sports Information Director, ext. 3122

7/16/07
Story by Peggy Graham

JCCC Offers Arabic I for Fall 2007

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. – Johnson County Community College will begin offering a five-hour credit class, Arabic I, for the first time in the fall 2007 semester. Arabic II will be offered beginning spring 2008.
 
Arabic classes will be taught by adjunct associate professor, Mervat Ibrahim, who also teaches in the Shawnee Mission School District and as an adjunct at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Students who successfully complete Arabic I will be able to read, write, listen and speak in everyday vocabulary and understand aspects of Arabic speaking cultures.

Marcee Andersen, JCCC assistant dean, speech, language and academic enhancement, says the college anticipates a majority of students will be members of the community who are international travelers, have married into an Arabic-speaking family or own international businesses.

“JCCC has an enormously diverse and popular language department, and offering Arabic classes is a natural outflow of moving into the 21st century,” Andersen said. “Johnson County is becoming more of a melting pot, and that includes people who havean interest in Arabic because of its culture, religions and the Iraq war.”

JCCC is the recipient of a Title VI grant from the U.S. Department of Education that is to be used to infuse Islamic culture into JCCC's curriculum. Further plans include Learning Communities pairing Islamic culture with three of the languages used by the Muslim world: Chinese and Russian, already offered by JCCC, and now Arabic.

For more information, contact Andersen at 913-469-8500, ext. 3904.

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