Outreach

The department has close ties with Our Lady of Lebanon Maronite Seminary in North-West Washington. Semitics faculty and graduate students have taught Syriac language courses at the Seminary; seminarians often attend department classes in Syriac and Arabic.

Over the years the department has taken a special interest in St. Thomas Chaldean Catholic Church and the Chaldean community in W. Bloomfield, Michigan. Dr. Shawqi Talia, a department instructor who received his Ph.D. here in 1987, is a member of the parish. Fr. Hanna Cheikho, who served as Parish rector until his death in 2001, spent part of a sabbatical year devoted to Syriac studies as an ICOR Fellow. The Semitics/ICOR Library receives the parish bulletin and other publications.

The department also has close ties with the St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute (SEERI) in Kottayam, Kerala, India. SEERI is a center for the study of Syriac Christianity.