News

PSU's Branford P. Millar Library has received $320,000 to enhance and increase the accessibility of its Middle Eastern and Judaic Studies collections.

"Portland State University's long history of scholarship and creativity in these disciplines, its status in the state as the sole provider of college-level instruction in Arabic and Hebrew, and the Millar Library's extensive existing collections, make it an ideal access point nationwide for documents and resource materials that will aid students and the community in understanding the peoples, languages, cultures, and religions of this critical region of the world," said Terry Ann Rohe, interim University librarian.

PSU's Middle East Studies Center, established in 1961, is the United States' first federally supported undergraduate program for Arabic language and area studies. In 2002, PSU began the Harold A. Schnitzer Family Judaic Studies Program, complementing its longstanding focus on Middle Eastern studies.

The allocation came from the federal government's fiscal 2005 omnibus spending bill, which also included $400,000 for PSU's Center for Transportation Studies.