The Middle East Studies Association (MESA) has selected Dr. Mary Ellen Lane, Executive Director of the Council of American Overseas Research Organizations (CAORC), to receive MESA’s 2009 Jere L. Bacharach Service Award. The award was bestowed in recognition of Dr. Lane’s exceptional service to the field of Middle East studies. Formal announcement of the award was made at the awards ceremony on November 22, at the MESA 2009 annual meeting at the Boston Marriott Copley Place in Boston, Massachusetts.

In making the award, MESA cited Dr. Lane’s consistent determination to support and create opportunities for advanced scholarly research and area studies around the world – especially in the Middle East.

Dr. Lane first went to Egypt as an American Research Center in Egypt Fellow in 1979-1980; in 1981 she became co-director of the US-AID funded Fayyum Archaeological Project. From 1982 to 1986, when ARCE was faced with the loss of its critical PL-480 support, Dr. Lane was hired as ARCE Assistant Director, where she formulated and established a fund development program that included initiating new public programs, corporate and individual fund-raising campaigns, and a congressional relations program, resulting in vastly increased annual private philanthropic support and ARCE’s meeting a major National Endowment for the Humanities matching grant.

Since 1986, when Dr. Lane joined CAORC as Executive Director, she has helped CAORC’s member centers work together on cooperative projects, obtain support for new projects, and secure stable annual operational funding.

Dr. Catherine deG. Vanderpool, Chair of the Council of American Overseas Research Centers Board, said “CAORC's Board and staff alike are delighted by the MESA Service Award to Dr. Lane, and we join them in saluting her for her extraordinary contributions not only to Middle Eastern studies but also to scholarly research and area studies around the world. Dr. Lane's many accomplishments underscore the critical role played by America's overseas research centers in furthering scholarship as well as international understanding and cooperation at every level. Her visionary leadership of CAORC for the past 23 years has been an inspiration to all of us."

In the Middle East, Dr. Lane worked with American and host-country scholars and officials to establish and make viable several new American overseas research centers: the Palestinian American Research Center, the American Academic Research Institute in Iraq, and the American Institute for Afghanistan Studies, as well as to help the American Institute of Maghrib Studies expand into Algeria.

As Dr. Philip Mattar, former President of the Palestinian American Research Center (PARC) Board, noted, Dr. Lane’s assistance was essential to PARC’s creation: “In spring 1997, she organized a meeting to help organize PARC, write its mission statement—to promote Palestinian studies and cooperation among scholars, among other things—and write its by-laws. Subsequently she helped PARC get on its feet and continues to help in its development. Since 2000 PARC has given an average of a dozen fellowships to Palestinian, American, and other scholars each year. PARC would not be in the position it is today were it not for Dr. Lane’s crucial leadership.”

In 2002, Dr. Lane led CAORC in securing a major grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to conduct a survey at nine American overseas research centers’ libraries in the Middle East. This resulted in the Middle East Research Journals project, which inventoried and cataloged more than 2,000 journals. Of these, seven rare titles were selected for preservation and full access over the Internet.

One of Dr. Lane’s most important accomplishments has been helping the centers expand their reach beyond supporting Americans conducting overseas research to be of greater direct benefit to local scholars and to involve host-country universities and organizations.

The award text reads:

The Middle East Studies Association
is pleased to present the

2009 Jere L. Bacharach Service Award
to
Mary Ellen Lane

In recognition of her exceptional service to the field of
Middle East studies,

With deep appreciation for over two decades of creativity and determination as Executive Director of the Council of American Overseas Research Centers initiating and supporting opportunities for advanced research around the world but especially in the Middle East where her own interests have been focused for forty years,

Her pivotal role in developing, expanding and securing
funding for centers from Inner Asia to Africa, and for

Encouraging those centers to expand their reach to benefit
local scholars, involve host-universities and organizations
and for promoting interregional cooperation often in
spite of historical and political rivalries.

Through her formidable organizational, networking,
fund-raising, arm-twisting and political skills and irresistible
southern charm, she has expanded the realms of
scholarship, fostered international collaboration, and
enhanced the lives of scholars.

It is an honor to recognize Mary Ellen Lane
whose vision and talent has benefitted so many.

The MESA Service Award was established in 1996 and was first awarded at MESA’s 1997 annual meeting. In 2004 the award was named for Jere L. Bacharach in honor of his extraordinary service to MESA, many of her sister societies, and the field overall. The award recognizes the contributions of individuals through their outstanding service to MESA or the profession. Dr. Lane joins a distinguished list of previous recipients of this award such as: Fred Donner (University of Chicago), Howard A. Reed (University of Connecticut), Ernest N. McCarus (University of Michigan), Jere L. Bacharach (University of Washington), Jeanne Jeffers Mrad (Center for Maghrib Studies in Tunisia), Elizabeth W. Fernea (University of Texas at Austin), and I. William Zartman (Johns Hopkins University).