Project Week

Project Week provides a welcome change to the normal class routine so students can acquaint themselves with interesting topics related to hot socio-political and cultural issues in Jordan and the Middle East. During the week, students are involved in experiential activities, site visits, talks, and discussions with a diverse group of experts, activists, and communities from different local and international organizations in Jordan. These diverse activities help students learn more about Jordanian society and culture through exploring specific topics. These topics have included tribes and tribalism, refugees, countering violent extremism, environmental issues, sustainability and development, youth culture, and urban planning in Jordan. Following Project Week, students continue to explore their theme by writing a research paper/recording a speech as part of their MSA course.

Below are some of the activities and student thoughts from previous Project Weeks.

Spring 2025

This semester, our students learned about the role and importance of tribes in Jordan, meeting with interesting members of various Jordanian tribal communities. This included university students, researchers, political party members, museum staff, and professors with personal and professional knowledge of the tribal landscape in Jordan. Students were interested in a wide variety of subtopics, from the political influence of tribes on the Jordanian government to their coffee drinking traditions, which our students entirely engaged with in Arabic. It was a challenging week, with students preparing in advance to be able to keep up with all the new and interesting influx of information. They studied vocabulary lists, were given readings, and underwent a dedicated class on the topic, all in addition to the homework they had to do during the week. Once this rewarding week came to a close, students conducted their own individual research about a topic of interest in order to better understand this complex component of Jordanian society as they wrote about it for their final project.

Spring 2024

One group of students focused on learning about Tribes and had interesting meetings with university students, researchers, public figures, political party members and a tribe leader (sheikh). Students were interested in a whole spectrum of things, from the political influence of tribes on the Jordanian government to their coffee drinking traditions, to which our guests tried their best to answer and our students tried their best to understand, all being in Arabic. It was a challenging week nonetheless, as students prepared in advance to be able to keep up with all the new and interesting influx of information. They studied vocab lists, were given readings, and underwent a dedicated class on the topic, as well having homework to do during the week. 

As for the week’s final project, students researched more about their chosen topic of interest in order to better understand this complex component of Jordanian society as they write about it.

The other group focused on Jordan’s unique history as a country that has received refugees for over a century. At the start of the week, our students were able to research a different refugee population in Jordan and present to their peers the most interesting information they had learned about refugees’ reasons for seeking asylum, their journeys to Jordan, and their experiences after they arrived. Over the course of the week, the refugee group’s interesting program included a visit to an international organization (International Rescue Committee-IRC) and two local refugee-run organizations, our partners Souriyat Across Borders and Sawiyan. After presentations about each organization’s work and challenges, we invited beneficiaries from the latter two to a half-day trip outside Amman to visit thee historic village of Iraq al-Amir and have Iftar together. This gave our students the opportunity to get to know them in pairs or small groups and hear about their personal experiences as refugees in Jordan. We also visited the Azraq refugee camp with CARE International. Students then researched a specific topic related to what they had learned throughout the week, from belonging and integration in Jordan as a host country to the use of art in processing trauma. Due to some scheduling difficulties, the final visit to a Palestinian urban camp in the heart of Amman was postponed to several weeks after the official Project Week.

Fall 2023

Fall 2023 students received a comprehensive introduction to “Tribes & Tribalism in Jordan”, which covered social, political and historical aspects of this defining feature of Jordanian society. They met with a researcher on the topic, activists representing different generations, a Sheikh (tribe leader), a former member of parliament, and groups of women and university students, all to explore, discuss and learn from them about their perspectives on the past, present, and future of tribes in Jordan.

Spring 2023

For Project Week in Spring 2023, students explored two different themes:

• the current landscape of refugees in Jordan, and
• the interplay between environmental issues and urban planning 

The former group learned about the challenges that refugees and organizations that serve them face, with a particular focus on the differences between the resources and services available to refugees of different nationalities. They were able to speak with representatives of the UNHCR, the Ministry of the Interior, an international NGO, a grassroots community initiative, an islamic charity, and a local NGO that focuses on using art to empower marginalized groups. 

The latter group spent the week learning about the issues of climate change, green energy, urban planning and transportation, as well as the challenges facing the Red and Dead Seas. They heard about Jordan’s plans to adapt to climate change, water scarcity and pollution, and the solutions currently offered by government and private agencies. They also met with some architecture engineering students at the University of Jordan and toured the city of Amman, partly on the Amman Bus Rapid Transit, to learn about its historical context, transportation methods and urban planning. 

Since this semester the week fell during the month of Ramadan, students also enjoyed an Iftar together with some of our guests!

Fall 2022

Theme for Fall 2022 Project Week: The Diverse Character of Jordan: From local tribes to recent immigrants.

This semester’s Project Week started with an overview of the history of Jordan with regard to welcoming refugees and migrants over the last few centuries. Students learned about the history of the Circassian community in Jordan and enjoyed the tasty food at Samawer restaurant. They learned about the legal framework for receiving refugees; the role of mosques and churches in embracing refugees from Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Yemen and other countries in the more recent past; and the work of international and local organizations in refugee camps and in Amman. Our students also explored Jabal Amman with some members of Souriyat Across Borders and made some yummy Knafeh on a rooftop.