MES student Sabrina Abboud is a recipient of the Presidential Scholar award. The Presidential Scholars award is the premier undergraduate merit scholarship at Florida State University. The program provides four years of support and is open to high school seniors who are admitted into the Florida State University Honors Program. Presidential Scholars Program invests in undergraduate students with extraordinary potential to be the transformational leaders of their generation.

Jesse Marks, 24, Jacksonville, Fla.
Marks, who earned a bachelor’s degree in Middle East studies in August 2016 and is currently the Herbert Scoville Jr. Fellow at the Stimson Center in Washington, D.C., will spend the year in Jordan studying the management of the eventual return and reintegration of Syrian refugees in Jordan to a postconflict Syria.

Kelly Baker, a senior majoring in international affairs and middle eastern studies from Greensboro, N.C., will travel to Jordan to study Arabic starting this fall. It will be a return visit. Baker studied in Amman during the summer of 2016, and the experience put her on a path toward fulfilling a key goal she’d harbored for years.

The Middle East Center and The Student Life Cinema at Florida State University are pleased to announce that they are bringing you the Middle East Film Festival! The festival brings a wide range of award-winning movies spanning across different parts of the Middle East in order to celebrate the region’s cultures, diversity, and strengths. 

A reception will take place on the opening night with free food, live music, and dance performances from different local groups and student organizations.