Common Ground Initiative

The Common Ground initiative is envisioned as a university-wide endeavor on the campus of Andrews University that seeks to balance all the negative media exposure in the public sphere about Moslems and the Middle East with a search for common ground. The endeavor would harness the resources of the Institute of Archaeology and Horn Archaeological Museum to improve teaching and learning about the Middle East at this university.

Specifically, Common Ground aims to heighten appreciation, knowledge and understanding about past and present cultural connections between these two polarized regions of the world, including common ground between the three great Abrahamic faiths—Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Guest speakers from the Institute would lecture in classes such as Civilizations and Ideas, Cultural Anthropology, Contemporary Social Issues and others. Classes would also visit the museum.

The Institute and museum would also be involved in continuing undergraduate research into the culture and history of the Middle East, with practical participation on archaelogical digs to Jordan with the Madaba Plains Project.

 

Edited 2/1/06 tlc