Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute is delighted and proud to announce a new endowment to the University of Arizona to establish the Roshan Graduate Interdisciplinary Program in Persian and Iranian Studies at the Graduate School, and support the program’s components, including a new endowed faculty chair and an endowed professorship, the Master of Arts and doctoral programs that are currently under development, and programmatic activities.
This endowment is uniquely poised to make a real impact for the training of Persian and Iranian studies scholars and Persian language teachers, for generations to come. The endowment also marks the first Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute graduate program among its network of endowed programs in Persian Studies throughout the world.
Kamran Talattof, a professor in Middle Eastern and North African Studies, will hold the Roshan Institute Chair in Persian and Iranian Studies, and also will serve as the initial Director of the Roshan Graduate Interdisciplinary Program’s executive committee. The Roshan Institute Professor in Persian and Iranian Studies has yet to be named.
This is Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute’s second endowment to the University of Arizona. In 2003, an endowment for Roshan Institute Fellowship for Excellence in Persian Studies was established in the School of Middle Eastern and North African Studies. The two endowments combined bring Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute’s total gifts to $2.3 million in support of the renowned Persian and Iranian Studies program at the University of Arizona.