Welcome ASI Participants!

Welcome to the web site for the American Studies Institute 2005, jointly sponsored by the Binational Fulbright Commission of Egypt and the Office of International Programs at James Madison University in Virginia, USA.

We at James Madison University are all honored and excited to participate in this project and we warmly welcome all participating Egyptian secondary school teachers.  We look forward to an informative, rewarding and busy week for each participant and instructor, and we have been working hard to prepare for such.  We hope to share information and teaching techniques that will be useful to teachers in Egypt.  The active participation of all involved will help us determine how best to work together. 

Our theme, Ideals and Realities of Civil Society in the U.S.A., will lead us to consider the nation's founders and their ideals for a new society; then continue on through history to look at the realities of problems in American society and how they were resolved, (primarily considering the problem of race relations;) and concluding with a consideration of the tension between conservativism and liberalism in recent U.S. history. 

When we discuss "civil society," we are considering primarily the general population of the country and how they have conducted themselves in society, rather than the government or military sections of the nation.  So while this Institute will begin by looking at the law in the U.S. Constitution, we will then see how the ideals of the law have played out among American people.

Elsewhere on this site you will find a copy of the ASI schedule, reading assignments and faculty biographies.  We are still working on this site so please return soon to find useful resources for the study of the USA and ASI information.

In Happy Anticipation,
Ms. Lorie Merrow, Project Director