On Oct. 10 to 13, Professors Ranjit Singh, political science and international affairs, and Nabil Al-Tikriti, history and American studies, attended the 2013 Middle East Studies Association (MESA) Conference in New Orleans, LA. The conference is the primary professional event for Middle East Studies in North America. On Oct. 11, Nabil Al-Tikriti chaired a panel entitled “Empire and Belonging: Ottoman Empire to Modern Turkey,” which brought together four scholars offering papers concerning intellectual luminaries in the late Ottoman Empire and early Republican Turkey. On Oct. 12, Ranjit Singh’s presentation on the “Teacher’s Dilemma” presented by new media  was part of the “Media, Media Literacy, and Teaching Middle East Studies” panel sponsored by MESA’s Committee for Undergraduate Middle East Studies (CUMES).