Indianapolis Firm Receives International Honor

Indianapolis-based global engineering consulting and design firm RW Armstrong has received the United Arab Emirates' Interior Design of the Year award, reports Inside INdiana Business.

The company was honored for designing the approximately $27 million Environment Agency headquarters in Abu Dhabi. RW Armstrong has more than 600 employees in 17 offices in the United States, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Egypt and Libya.

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Purdue Librarian Off to Alexandria, Egypt

Michael Witt (pictured), an assistant professor of library science and interdisciplinary research librarian at Purdue University, has been named a Fulbright Scholar, reports the Purdue news bureau.

The Fulbright Scholar Program is administered by the Council for the International Exchange of Scholars for the U.S. Department of State.

The award will support Witt in relocating his family to Alexandria, Egypt, where he will lecture and conduct research at the Bibliotheca Alexandria from January to May 2011.

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The Myth of the Moderate Taliban

Vikash Yadav, assistant professor of political science at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in New York and 1991 graduate of DePauw University, will return to his alma mater on Wednesday (14 April) to deliver the Walker Horizon Lecture in Political Science.

Dr. Yadav will discuss "The Myth of the Moderate Taliban" at 4:15 p.m. in the Pulliam Center for Contemporary Media's Watson Forum on the Greencastle campus. The presentation is free and open to all, reports the DePauw news bureau.

Professor Yadav published the book Risk in International Finance in 2008. He has also written articles on India's relations with the International Monetary Fund and on ways to make international financial organizations more democratic and representative of the voices of the poorest countries.

His current research project examines India's grand strategy in Afghanistan as well as shifting conceptions of sovereignty, security, and identity in the greater South Asia region.

A history major at DePauw, where he graduated cum laude, Yadav went on to earn his Master of Arts degree at the University of Chicago in 1993 and his doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania in 2002. He was also the Queen Elizabeth Visiting Scholar at St. Antony's College at Oxford University.

Prior to joining the Hobart and William Smith faculty, Dr. Yadav taught at Bryn Mawr, Mt. Holyoke and the American University in Cairo.

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Ancient Egypt Arrives at Children's Museum

The Children's Museum of Indianapolis has revealed the third and final component of its National Geographic exhibit opening next year, reports Inside INdiana Business. Archeological excavation of ancient Egyptian tombs will be one of three major areas of the $4.2 million exhibit. The backdrop for the Egyptian component will be the tomb of Seti I, a pharaoh who reigned from 1290 to 1279 BCE.

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Take Me There: Egypt!

You can "visit" Egypt without leaving Indiana, beginning Saturday (27 June), when a new exhibit opens at the Children's Museum of Indianapolis, 3000 North Meridian Street, Indianapolis.

"Take Me There: Egypt" is a new $8 million, 13,000-square-foot exhibit space was created after more than five years of planning, and provides such an immersive experience that visitors will feel like they've experienced the country firsthand.

The opening of the exhibit coincides with the opening of a temporary exhibit on ancient Egypt, featuring artifacts from the tomb of King Tutankhamun.

"Take Me There: Egypt" is made possible by lead gifts from Lilly Endowment Inc., Eli Lilly and Company Foundation, The Lilly Family, Yvonne Shaheen, Sarah and John Lechleiter, the U.S. Institute for Museum and Library Services, Jane and Steve Marmon, Jim and Susan Naus, and Polly Hix.

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International Business Owners to Visit Bloomington

The Bloomington Life Sciences Partnership, a program of the Bloomington Economic Development Corporation, will host seven international business owners, reports Inside INdiana Business (although no dates for the visit have been announced).

The group will learn about the city's growing presence as a life sciences hub, participate in a brief tour and visit local life sciences organizations. Representatives include a provincial governor, business owners and agency directors from Angola, Egypt, Philippines, Rwanda, Senegal and Serbia.

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Ancient Egypt Comes to Indianapolis

Over 130 treasures from the tomb of the “Boy King” and other important rulers from 2,000 years of ancient Egyptian history will be on exhibit at The Children's Museum of Indianapolis later this year.

The exhibit, opening 27 June, will feature objects from some of the most important rulers throughout 2,000 years of ancient Egyptian history, from the 4th Dynasty into the Late Period (about 2600 B.C.E. – 660 B.C.E.), many of which have never visited the United States.

Four galleries devoted to King Tut will correspond to the four rooms of his nearly intact tomb where the treasures were discovered by British explorer Howard Carter in 1922. Legendary artifacts from the antechamber, the annex, the treasury and the burial chamber will include Tutankhamun’s golden sandals, jewelry, furniture, weaponry and statuary.

This exhibit will also feature the largest image of King Tut ever found — a 10-foot statue that may have originally stood at his mortuary temple and retains much of its original paint, one of four gold and precious-stone-inlaid canopic jars and CT scans of Tut’s mummy.

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"Great Decisions" Series Starts Next Month

The Great Decisions Lecture Series addresses eight current international issues important to the United States. The series includes a lecture followed by group discussion.

Participation in this Indy-based series, sponsored by the Indiana Council on World Affairs, is open to the public, with sessions scheduled for eight Tuesday evenings. They will be held in the Pharmacy Building, Butler University, Indianapolis. Registration begins at 7 p.m. with the program following at 7:30 p.m.

THE ARCTIC AGE - 3 February - Richard Fredland, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, Political Science, Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis

AFGHANISTAN AND PAKISTAN - 10 February - Milind Thakar, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of International Relations, University of Indianapolis

ENERGY & THE GLOBAL ECONOMY - 17 February - Jesse Kharbanda, Executive Director, Hoosier Environmental Council

THE U.S. AND RISING POWERS - 24 February - Pierre Atlas, Ph.D., Director of the Richard G. Lugar Franciscan Center for Global Studies, Marian College

EGYPT IN THE 21ST CENTURY - 3 March - Amira Mashhour, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, World Languages and Cultures, IUPUI

GLOBAL FOOD SUPPLY - 17 March - James Morris, Former Executive Director of the U.N. World Food Program

CUBA AFTER CASTRO - 24 March - Gaston Fernandez, Ph.D., Professor of Political Science, Indiana State University

UNIVERSAL HUMAN RIGHTS? - 31 March - Paul Hanson, Ph.D., Professor of History, Butler University

For further information on the local, contact Annette Johansson, 317:879-1338.

"Great Decisions" is a program of the Foreign Policy Association.

Corporate Social Responsibility in the Middle East

Barbara Ibrahim will discuss "Corporate Social Responsibility in the Middle East: Citizen Business Leaders" during a 4 p.m. presentation today (10 December) in the Lilly Auditorium of the University Library at Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis.

The event is sponsored by the Indiana University Center on Philanthropy at IUPUI. Ibrahim, Director of the John D. Gerhart Center for Philanthropy and Civic Engagement at American University in Cairo, has spent the fall semester with the Center on Philanthropy as a visiting scholar.

An Indiana University alumna and former program officer with the Ford Foundation in Cairo, Ibrahim is an expert on international philanthropy, especially philanthropy in Arab nations, nations with strong Islamic communities, and diaspora philanthropy among Muslims in the United States and elsewhere.

Egyptian Scholar Visits Indiana

An internationally-respected expert on terrorism will participate in a panel discussion at Valparaiso University Thursday (16 October) as part of a two-week visit to campus through the Fulbright Scholar program.

Dr. Abd El-Aziz Shady, a political science professor and director of Cairo University's Program on Terrorism Studies, will discuss "The Future of Terrorism: A Look at Current Middle East Affairs" at 6:30 p.m. in the Christopher Center for Library and Information Resources. The panel discussion is free and open to the public.

Responding to Dr. Shady's remarks will be Dr. Chuck Schaefer, an associate professor of history whose scholarship and teaching interests include modern African and Middle Eastern political and social history; Dr. Nelly van Doorn-Harder, Patheja professor of world religions and ethics and one of the world's leading scholars on Muslim-Christian relations; and Dr. Susan Shearer, an adjunct assistant professor of political science whose research and teaching focuses on international relations and U.S. foreign policy.

Dr. Shady's research has focused on religion and democratization in the Arab world, the nation-state's absence and terrorism in the Middle East, and Christian perceptions of Islam in the United States. He is spending six weeks in the United States discussing those issues and others as part of his participation in the Fulbright Scholar program.

Dr. Shady will speak on “Women in Muslim Society” during the 21 October gathering of the Indianapolis Committee on Foreign Relations. The event begins at 5:45 p.m. in the Woodstock Club, 1301 West 38th Street, Indianapolis. Guests are welcome by reservation only; contact Courtenay Weldon. Cost is $35-45.

The World of Ancient Egypt Comes to Indy

A bit of ancient Egypt arrives at the Indianapolis Museum of Art this summer. The IMA will be the first venue to host "To Live Forever: Egyptian Treasures from the Brooklyn Museum", which will be on view 13 July through 7 September. Featuring some 120 objects dating from 3600 BCE to 400 CE from the world-renowned Egyptian art collection of New York’s Brooklyn Museum, the exhibition will illustrate the range of strategies and preparations the ancient Egyptians developed to defeat death and to achieve success in the afterlife. After its debut at the IMA, To Live Forever will travel to the John and Mable Ringling Museum (Sarasota, FL); Columbus (Ohio) Museum of Art; Chrysler Museum of Art (Norfolk, VA); Norton Museum of Art (West Palm Beach, FLA), and Frist Center for Visual Arts (Nashville, TN).

Graduate Law Program in Middle East

With classes scheduled to start in January 2008, Indiana University School of Law-Indianapolis will become the first U.S. law school to offer an American Bar Association approved, fully-accredited law degree program in the Middle East, according to the Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis news bureau. The U.S. law school, located in downtown Indianapolis, will offer a master's degree with a focus on international commercial law at two law schools in Egypt: the Faculty of Law at Alexandria University and the Faculty of Law at Cairo University. As part of its initiative to help Egypt modernize its economy and its legal system, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has awarded the Indiana law school a three-year, $6.7 million grant to operate the U.S. Master of Laws (LL.M.) Program in Egypt.