Overcoming first hurdle, Doran gets NES nod

The Department of Near Eastern Studies has recommended assistant professor Michael Doran GS '97 for tenure, department chair Andras Hamori confirmed Monday.

Although Hamori could not give any details regarding the department's decision, the announcement is particularly significant because Doran was recently offered a tenured position at Brandeis University.

Once a tenure candidate has earned his department's approval, the next step in the process is review by the Committee of Three, composed of six faculty members, the senior deans and the provost.

Doran, who received his masters and doctoral degrees from Princeton, teaches courses in "political Islam, Middle Eastern nationalisms, U.S.-Middle East relations and the Arab-Israeli conflict," according to his profile on the NES website.

In recent years, Doran, an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City, has become an increasingly influential figure in Middle East policy. In 2002, he published a groundbreaking article, "Somebody Else's Civil War," in the journal 'Foreign Relations.'

The article, which argued that for Osama bin Laden, "war with the United States was not a goal in and of itself but rather an instrument designed to help his brand of extremist Islam survive and flourish among the believers," made him a sought-after speaker for leaders of both business and government.

"Mike has a very important effect on policy debates," said Rachel Bronson, senior fellow and director of Middle East and Gulf studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Doran is "willing to step outside the academy" to affect the broader policy debate, she said. "It's the best part of what an academic should be."

Since joining the University community full-time in fall 2000, Doran has consistently received excellent reviews on the Student Course Guide for his work in the classroom.

One student who took Doran's NES 201/HIS 223: Introduction to the Middle East in the fall of 2003 described him as a "great lecturer" and "perfect historian."

Doran has also written a book examining the first Arab-Israeli war and is currently working on a new text, called "The Trump Card: Israel in the Arab Civil War."

Before joining the University's faculty, he was an assistant professor of history at the University of Central Florida from 1997-2000.