Timothy Norville

Project Assistant

Timothy Norville joined the oIP in 2009. A native of the Shenandoah Valley, Timothy is completing his B.A. in Political Science from JMU. As a high school senior, Timothy voluntarily joined the U.S. Army and proudly served his country during tours in Afghanistan and Iraq, where he was privileged to gain insight into Middle Eastern cultures that few Americans will ever know. These deployments unveiled life-changing opportunities for Timothy to develop personal relationships with the local people and to form his own opinions of the Middle Eastern culture outside of American media reports.

Now with the oIP, Timothy serves as the Program Assistant on the Department of Defense-sponsored Project: NENDA, which is part of a broad effort to introduce and educate ROTC cadets on lesser-spoken, "critical", languages and cultures that can help improve foreign relationships. As a liaison between the oIP and national ROTC institutions, Timothy is able to provide the military's future officers with insights he gained from personal experience with these "critical" cultures and languages he learned during his service. He is passionate about using language to help overcome barriers in political relationships – at all levels of foreign involvement.

Timothy has previously studied Pashto and Arabic at JMU and is currently learning Kiswahili, which he put into practice while travelling with cadets during JMU's Kenya 2010 Summer Program.