Mounir Farah
Faculty Career Award, 2011
Mounir Farah won the college's faculty career award.
He is a professor of secondary education whose expertise is social studies, international education and Middle East studies. Farah joined the faculty of the College of Education and Health Professions in 1997. At that time, he held a faculty appointment as a research historian in the history department and also served in the King Fahd Center for Middle East Studies as associate director and director of external relations and outreach from 1995 through 2001. He holds a doctorate in Middle East and European history from New York University as well as degrees and diplomas in South Asian studies, political science, economics, secondary education and educational administration and curriculum.
Farah has authored, co-authored, and was a contributing writer to 37 books published in English in the United States. He was also the academic editor/consultant for 30 textbooks and 20 teacher’s guides published in Arabic by the Jordanian Ministry of Education. His award-winning textbooks have been used not only in United States schools, but also in Jordan and other Arabic-speaking countries. Nearly 1 million copies of World History: The Human Experience, for which Farah was the senior of two authors, have been sold in the United States and abroad. It was the leading world history textbook in the United States and in American schools abroad for several years. He was a consultant for 11 educational films.
He has organized more than 150 workshops and institutes presenting methods for teaching students about the history and cultures of the Middle East and about global issues for teachers across the United States. Also, he served as a consultant to international educational projects funded by the World Bank and the European Union.
Farah advises students and supervises the internship year of social studies students while also working with graduate level international students. He has been the chair or a member of 31 dissertation committees in the past 10 years.
Farah is in his 49th year as a teacher. He began teaching seventh- and eighth-grade students in rural Kansas in 1963 and also taught and supervised in high school for 27 years in Connecticut and at colleges and universities in the United States and overseas.
Farah was instrumental in inviting Queen Noor to the University of Arkansas commencement in 2001 and coordinated her visit. He led five educational delegations from the university system in Arkansas to trips in Saudi Arabia, Syria, Jordan and Morocco, and he drafted agreements between the ministries of higher education in Saudi Arabia and Morocco and the University of Arkansas. He also drafted memoranda of understanding between the University of Arkansas and six universities in Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Jordan and with the Royal Jordanian Geographic Center.
Among the awards that he has received in his career are the New England History Scholar-Teacher of the Year Award, Arkansas University Educator of the Year in Social Studies, Connecticut Applied Economics Teacher of the Year, Connecticut Social Studies Annual Award, 2010 Faculty Career Award in Curriculum and Instruction. Farah was the recipient of numerous fellowships including NDEA, NSF, EPDA, NDFL and a Fulbright scholar.
Farah’s professional activities are numerous. He served as the national president of the Middle East Outreach Council, president of the Connecticut Council for the Social Studies, president of Sherman County Teachers Association (Kan.), member of the Arkansas Council for the Social Studies, member of the board of directors of the International Assembly of the National Council for the Social Studies, member of the House of Delegates of the National Council for the Social Studies (16 times), as well as international boards for Andalusian studies, Yemeni Studies, and international schools in Syria and Jordan. He has been an invited speaker/participant to institutes and conferences in Germany, South Korea, Morocco, UAE, Syria, Jordan, Lithuania, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, and India.
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