December 2023 update from the committee co-chairs

Dear students, staff, faculty, and alumni,

Following the announcement of the Muslim, Arab, Palestinian Communities Committee, we have been working to identify key stakeholders and consultants, and to form a committee to coordinate them. We are grateful that so many of you have reached out, and we wanted to provide a brief update on our process, charge, and next steps. Please share this update widely.

Process

The committee is composed of faculty, staff, and alumni. We have aimed to make the group as representative as possible and recruited members with broad and deep institutional knowledge and networks across campus. Undergraduate and graduate students across Stanford’s schools are key stakeholders and will be involved throughout the process by having opportunities to serve in different roles. We expect to do wide outreach through this update and our networks, hold numerous listening sessions, and synthesize data from that outreach to help inform our recommendations. As we do this work, we will continue to identify consultants, liaisons, and content area experts based on our charge.

Members

• Co-chair Abiya Ahmed, Director of the Markaz Resource Center and Associate Dean of Students
• Co-chair Alexander Key, Associate Professor of Comparative Literature
• Shirin Sinnar, William W. and Gertrude H. Saunders Professor of Law
• Natalie Jabbar, Associate Director of Stanford University's Public Humanities Initiative
• Firas Abuzaid, alumnus and Markaz Advisory Board member
• Nadia Roumani, alumna and Senior Designer at Stanford d school.

Charge

The committee’s charge is three-fold, as noted in the announcement: 1) recommendations around Islamophobia, and anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian bias on campus; 2) collaboration with all campus communities and parallel committees; 3) recommendations on structural/institutional changes to improve the experience of Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian communities.

In addition, we have been asked to work on both short and long-term goals. Our first task is to submit preliminary recommendations to the president & provost in two months, and this will be our priority for now.

Next Steps

We are beginning listening sessions with key stakeholders and will continue them through next year. In the coming days, our committee members will be reaching out to various contingents to schedule these sessions. Please get in touch with us if you are interested in contributing to our work.

As always, we welcome your feedback and questions. You can reach us at mapcommittee@stanford.edu

Thank you,
Abiya Ahmed & Alexander Key
Committee Co-Chairs