Wabash College is pleased to welcome Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellow, Marcia Grant, on Wednesday, March 31 at 8:00 p.m. Grant will speak on the topic of “Beyond the Veil: What Has Modernization Meant to Men and to Women in Saudi Arabia?” The lecture will take place in the Lovell Lecture Room of Baxter Hall.
Grant is the founding Dean, President, and Academic Vice Dean of Effat College in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. She is also the educational counselor to Princess Lolowah al-Faisal and is the former executive director of the Institute of North American Studies in Barcelona and director of the Fulbright Program in Mexico and cultural attaché in Paris.
During the summer of 1999, Grant was asked to design and start a college for women in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. One month later, in September 1999, Effat College opened with 37 students and six professors. Today it has 36 teachers and 200 students. Grant continues to work for Princess Lolowah-al-Faisal and the College, and is currently writing about the experience from her home in a small village in Southwest France.
A liberal arts education and early experiences in Latin America have had a profound impact on Grant’s values and career direction. Always interested in non-Western and Latin American countries, she began her academic career teaching African and International Politics at Oberlin College. As a single parent, she entered the Foreign Service of USIA, as a good way to combine career and parenting. She served as director of the Fulbright Program in Mexico and as a cultural attache in Paris. For four years she led the Edward S. Mason program for Third World government officials at the Kennedy School of Harvard, and then worked with the Institute of International Education in New York. Before going to Jeddah she was executive director of the Institute of North American Studies in Barcelona.
Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellows connect a liberal education with the world beyond the campus by bringing thoughtful and successful practitioners to colleges for a week of classes and informal discussions with student and faculty.
In addition to her talk on Wednesday, Grant will be visiting with students and will give an International Studies lunch talk on Tuesday, March 30 in Detchon International Hall beginning at 12 noon. Her talk will be on “Starting a Women’s University in Saudi Arabia.”
Grant’s talk on Tuesday and Wednesday are free and open the public.