Academic Freedom Initiative Coordinator

Academic Freedom Initiative Coordinator, MESA

The Middle East Studies Association is seeking a full-time, remote employee reporting to the executive director of the Middle East Studies Association, which is headquartered at Georgetown University.

This position primarily supports the MESA Task Force on Civil and Human Rights, specifically the Academic Freedom Initiative, which is supported by a two-year grant from the Mellon Foundation.

This professional, full-time position offers competitive compensation with benefits. The expected duration of this position is for the duration of the grant.

The Academic Freedom Initiative Coordinator will take the lead in data collection, organization, and analysis regarding campus climate and academic freedom issues since October 7. There is no comprehensive picture of developments on North American campuses to make clear the full scope and scale of the resulting policies and policy changes that have been implemented in response to student, staff, and faculty speech and associational activity. The lack of data and data collection has made it difficult for organizations to adequately support students and educators studying, teaching, or writing on Israel-Palestine. Our aim is to rectify this shortfall by creating a public database recording the full range of experiences of faculty, staff, and students who work on issues related to Israel-Palestine since October 7, and to provide analytical frameworks to assess the implications of these trends. We also plan to track legislative and policy changes affecting academic speech on these issues at the state and federal levels. Finally, we intend to document the more subtle effects on research, scholarship, and teaching on the Middle East of the changing context for speech and associational life on campuses, including the ways that faculty, researchers, and students may have shifted their research and teaching choices where they might be addressing subjects deemed controversial.

The ideal candidate should be a well-qualified, experienced researcher with appropriate background in data collection and social science methods to work full-time on data collection and analysis.

MESA is a non-profit association that fosters the study of the Middle East and North Africa, promotes high standards of scholarship and teaching, and encourages public understanding of the region and its peoples through programs, publications and services that enhance education, further intellectual exchange, recognize professional distinction, and defend academic freedom in accordance with its status as a 501(c)(3) scientific, educational, literary, and charitable organization.

This is anticipated to be a two-year position, generously supported by the Mellon Foundation.

Academic Freedom Initiative Coordinator Anticipated Duties

The work of this full-time position with benefits is anticipated to take two distinct stages, over the two years of the project.

First Year: Data Collection

First, the Coordinator would refine and repeat a climate survey of Middle East faculty and students with an eye towards collecting granular information about campus experiences for affected faculty and students.

Second, the Coordinator would conduct a systematic search of public reporting in student newspapers and social media to collect detailed information about events on hundreds of campuses across the country, coding them in terms of the type of incident and the outcome.

Third, the Coordinator would examine campus policies and administrative decisions related to Middle East studies from before and after 10/7/2023 to identify changes in the procedures governing the permitting and registration practices for events, and disciplinary policies for students and faculty.

Fourth, the Coordinator would examine Title VI complaints and incidents related to these issues to assess how that process is being implemented.

Fifth, the Coordinator would take the introductory role in reaching out to other networks and organizations active on campuses and on issues related to academic freedom for the purpose of sharing information and drawing on already existing event reporting, with support from a second part-time position.

Sixth, the Coordinator would assess other efforts (by other organizations working in this space) to collect such information about campus incidents in order to identify missing pieces, methodological shortcomings, and other aspects which might produce misleading conclusions.

Seventh, the Coordinator would collect information about federal and state legislation around these issues.

Second Year: Dissemination

Once the data has been compiled, the research Coordinator and the MESA Task Force would seek to disseminate the information in several ways, with the support of a second Mellon-funded part-time public affairs Associate who will be building out the digital infrastructure.

First, both of the Mellon-funded positions would establish and maintain a public database of events, policies, and other relevant information which would inform the research of others (academics, journalists, activists, policymakers) working on these issues.

Second, the Coordinator in conjunction with the Task Force would issue several reports highlighting the findings, and then (with the support of the public affairs Associate) actively disseminate those findings through publications in venues such as the Chronicle of Higher Education and major op-ed pages, as well as through social media, podcasts, and other newer publication platforms.

Third, the Coordinator would produce regular shorter reports and analyses to be published via a blog platform, assisted and maintained by the part-time Associate, in order to have immediate impact on issues and debates as they arise, and to build broader networks and community around issues of the defense of academic freedom.

Fourth, the Coordinator—supported by the part-time Associate and in conjunction with the Task Force—would work with college and university administrators to share and contextualize the data, in order to inform critical campus policies and their enforcement. The project would make available resources to both administrators and faculty/staff/students about these issues, to allow them to place local incidents into broader national context and to learn from best practices at institutions across North America.

The Coordinator may direct the day-to-day work of the part-time Associate, and also assist in other relevant tasks to this project, as assigned and directed by the project leads.

Academic Freedom Initiative Coordinator Requirements

• Graduate degree in a relevant field
• Aptitude for working within a small, professional team
• Strong organizational and analytical skills
• Ability to conduct research independently and in collaboration
• Demonstrated communications skills, both written and spoken
• Expertise with relevant software

The starting salary is anticipated in a range of $70,000-80,000 annually, commensurate with experience. MESA also offers a competitive benefits package including retirement contributions and insurance coverage. The duration of this grant-funded position is expected to be two years.

The position may be remote (within the US), or hybrid and partially based at MESA’s DC office (Georgetown University, Center for Contemporary Arab Studies).

The candidate should be available to start in January 2025.