July 2007
Maia Carter Hallward and her husband, Christopher
Hallward, by the ruins in Petra, Jordan, in December 2004.
9/11 changed a lot of things for a lot of people. For
Maia Carter Hallward, ’98, who had entered the School of
International Service at American University just a few weeks
earlier in August 2001, it changed her decision about the kind of
research to pursue in her doctoral program.
The events of 9/11 underscored the explosive, urgent
state of affairs in the Middle East and led Hallward, only recently
returned from three years of working in the Middle East, to shift the
focus of her doctoral research from international development to the
volatile relationship between Israelis and Palestinians.
Hallward first traveled to the Middle East during the
summer of 1997 when she accompanied her parents on a project trip to
the Ramallah Friends Schools,
an elementary school and a secondary school founded in the West Bank
in 1889 by Quakers. Hallward said her family, who are Quakers, had
previous ties to the schools. A great-great-aunt taught there, as did
Hallward’s father when he was a conscientious objector during the
Vietnam War.
Hallward followed her family’s tradition and returned
to the West Bank to teach geography, world history and U.S. history to
middle school and high school students at the Ramallah Friends Schools
for two years immediately following her college graduation in 1998.
She described Ramallah as
the default capital of Palestine and home to many well-educated
Palestinians as well as many international residents. She found the
Palestinians incredibly hospitable and welcoming of her and other
Westerners; only occasionally did she overhear whispered disapprovals
as she walked through the city’s crowded streets.
“It was more challenging being a woman than being a
Westerner,” Hallward said. “I was living in Ramallah during the Monica
Lewinsky scandal. U.S. movies show a particular image of women as
loose and easy. I’m a blonde, blue-eyed, single woman walking around by
myself.”
Overall, however, Hallward delighted in the many
friendly interactions she had with the Palestinian people. She also
enjoyed soaking up the culture and learning about the politics of the
region. And she was struck by the beautiful scenery and spectacular
Roman ruins she saw on her visits to neighboring Lebanon and Syria.
In June 2000 Hallward moved from the West Bank to
Amman, Jordan, where she spent six months conducting research at the
>United Nations
University International Leadership Academy in support of an
upcoming conference on peace building. She credited professor
Joanne Ciulla, who held the UNESCO chair at the academy, with
helping her land the job.
Hallward finished out her year in Jordan teaching
third grade at the American
Community School, a private college preparatory school serving
American and expatriate students from the business and diplomatic
communities as well as Jordanian nationals. She returned to the United
States in time to start graduate school in August 2001.
As a doctoral candidate studying Israeli-Palestinian
relations, Hallward focused much of her research on the continued
operation of Israeli and Palestinian peace and justice groups, despite
a return to violent conflict in the region after years of failed
attempts to rejuvenate a stalled peace process associated with the
Oslo Accords.
She spent a summer immersed in the intensive
Arabic-language program at Middlebury College and then conducted her
field research in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories from
September 2004 to June 2005 while simultaneously studying Hebrew at
the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Hallward completed her doctoral degree in May 2006
and moved to Atlanta, Ga., to join the
Department of
Political Science and International Affairs at Kennesaw State
University where she teaches courses such as Introduction to
International Relations, Politics of the Middle East and Politics of
Developing Areas.
Her classes sometimes have as many as 70 to 80
students, she said. She teaches some online classes to accommodate the
university’s many nontraditional students.
Hallward incorporates much of what she learned at
Jepson into her teaching methodology. For example, she assigned group
projects to her students last semester despite their protestations. “I
told them they could learn a lot from working in groups,” she said.
Her students must also employ critical-thinking
skills when they write papers that examine the application of
particular cases. “I want my students to look beyond Fox News, to try
to approach a problem from a variety of perspectives and to apply and
critique theories rather than just regurgitate course material,” she
said.
Hallward strives to provide her students with the
sense of belonging and respect she experienced as an undergraduate.
“Our professors at Jepson treated us as a member of the community.
They really appreciated our contributions and made us responsible for
our education.”
The demands of a tenure-track job can prove
challenging at times. In addition to her teaching responsibilities,
Hallward has served on several search committees reviewing applicants
for faculty positions, researches peace and civil society groups in
the Middle East, makes presentations at conferences, writes articles
for publication and serves on the editorial board of the peer-reviewed
Journal of Peacebuilding and Development.
Now she has one more thing to juggle—the care of her
son, Graham Deichler Hallward, born December 15, 2006. “He’s
absolutely delightful and quite mellow,” she said, making it possible
for him to accompany her to work at times.
“He’s been dragged to so many committee meetings and
even attended a conference where I was presenting,” she said. “People
remark to me that the freshmen are getting younger every year.”
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