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 Hind
Rassam Culhane was a high-energy and popular teacher at the University
of Damascus Medical College, where she taught courses on child
development, adolescent disorders and health service delivery
from January through June 2001. Her work was a breakthrough for
the college, which had never before offered training in the social
sciences to medical staff. She also worked with Syria's Ministry
of Health to upgrade the education and training of nurses, bringing
doctors and nurses together in a workshop for the very first time.
The research component of her ambitious Fulbright project was
more challenging. Culhane is an associate professor of psychology
and behavioral science at Mercy College in Dobbs Ferry,
New York. She set out to survey the worldviews of young people
in Syria, where "research" is typically conducted in
libraries or archives. Statistical studies requiring the cooperation
of many people are rare and, in the current economic and political
climate, suspect. Youth found it difficult to answer questions
on how they saw themselves in the foreseeable future, how they
compared with their parents' generations and the influence of
Western popular culture on their lives. She had to adapt her questions
to local cultural norms and extend her Fulbright project by three
months to obtain a statistically valid sample.
 But
Culhane, who was joined for part of the time by her husband, John,
also found the Syrians to be proud and generous hosts and neighbors.
Cab drivers marveled at her fluent Arabic -- "Very good for
a foreigner!" -- until she confessed that she'd learned it
in Baghdad, as a child of Iraqi and Lebanese parents. When her
35-year-old son, T.H., a doctoral student at UCLA, came to check
out the Damascus music scene, the whole family participated in
the jam sessions, sing-alongs and rock concerts. A talented musician
and composer, T.H. even recorded a song he had written that combined
Arabic and English motifs; a Syrian singer and guitarist joined
him.
In Damascus, Culhane lived on a tree-lined street, heady with
the scents of jasmine and orange blossoms, where she felt safe.
All her neighbors-Muslims, Christians, Syrians and foreign nationals-were
"respectful, concerned and very protective of me," she
says.
She would have stayed longer, if she could. The Ministry of Health
needs "five of me and two years to accomplish" the goals
for its nursing program, she says. But she looks forward to future
collaborations and to sharing her research and insights with those
back home.
"I expect my role will be to correct many stereotypes and
misconceptions about Syria and the Arab world," she says,
"just as it was to tweak perceptions of America in Damascus".
What she cherishes most are friendships forged in discussions
about cultures, customs, forms of government and family dynamics-they
helped to highlight "what is real, and what is ideal."
Culhane is currently in Baghdad working with Creative Associates
International, an educational consulting firm hired to help reconstruct
education in Iraq. She is joined in Iraq by her sisters, both
professors as well. One of them, Amal Rassam, is a former Fulbright
Scholar and is working on developing civil society structures.
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