Sumela Monastery, 4th Century A.D., Macka, Trabazon Province, Turkey

Photo by Alam Payind

The Eastern Consortium in Persian and Turkish (ECPT) is a cooperative arrangement of universities with Middle East National Resource Centers, intended to provide intensive, one-year equivalent instruction in both first- and second-year Persian and Turkish language during the summer session.  The participating members of the Consortium currently are Columbia, Georgetown, Harvard, New York, Ohio State, and Princeton Universities, and the Universities of Chicago, Michigan, and Minnesota.  The program annually serves a national constituency of students who are pursuing the less commonly taught languages of Persian and Turkish. In the summer of 2006 Pashto was offered for the first time through the Consortium. Students are general at the graduate level, pursuing a variety of different disciplines, from the Humanities to the Sciences, and in numerous types of professional pursuits. The Consortium’s venue rotates regularly among the member institutions.  During the past summer, the program was hosted very successfully at the University of Chicago, who served as host during summer of 2007, and 2008 as well.  In summer 2010, the University of Wisconsin will host the Consortium - see: apip.global.wisc.edu for further information.  For the next National Resource Center grant cycle, the University of Wisconsin and Boston University will take turns hosting.