Portland State Magazine Winter 2010

FLUENCY IN FOUR ARABIC dialects as well as classical Arabic, French, and German helped Peter Bechtold during his field research in these countries. There he received two Ph.D.s, one in Near East studies and one in political science. ''All the trouble we're in-including Iraq and Afghanistan– is a result of that as a nation we're not sufficiently informed about what's going on in the rest of the world," says Bechtold. "You have to understand history, culture, society, politics, religion, economics-that's what I try to teach." One classic example he cites involves the simple activity of counting on your fingers. To signify the number one, Ameri– cans use the index finger, says Bechtold, Europeans use the thumb, and people from the Middle Ease begin counting on their Iittle finger. "Context matters," says Bechtold. A "given" to one group of people may not be to another. "If you understand that, you're half the way there." THROUGHOUT his career, Bechtold has retained a soft spot for Portland State. For the last 10 years, he's followed PSU athletic teams via the Internet. And he says that every year as he sweated through an East Coast summer he wondered "Why am I not in Portland!" In summer 2009, his chance came. The Middle East Studies Center hosted a yearlong celebration of its 50th anniversary. There was a lot to celebrate. More than 21,000 undergraduates and 2,000 graduate students have taken courses through the center and hundreds have earned degrees with a Middle East concenCration. As the center's first certificate recipient, Bechtold was invited to speak at the celebratory banquet. From that reconnection, Bechtold was offered the director– ship of the center. He quickly said yes. "I love Portland State, and I love Portland. I want to contribute." He had just one fear. 14 PORTLAND STATE MAGAZINE WINTER 2010 KAZAKHSTAN Bechtold had taught undergraduates early in his career– inclucling a year spent at University of Oregon, where he filled in for a professor on leave-and been a guest lecturer ac more than 40 universities. But at the Foreign Service Institute, his classes were graduate level and his students were older profes– sionals taking courses as a work requirement. "You don't have to persuade them, they're motivated," says Bechtold. ''After 30 years of talking to people who were 30 to 60, could I still talk to 20-year-olds?" Fortunately, he had some recent experience with younger students. Shortly after retiring from the Foreign Service Institute in 2005 he had filled in at the College ofWilliam and Mary for a year. That experience gave him the confidence that he could make the needed connection. "The students were motivated," says Bechtold. "It was fun." As the center looks to the next 50 years, Bechtold hopes to infuse some of his experiences into its programs. One approach might be to initiate a seminar similar to one offered at Princeton that introduces students to each of the Middle East studies specialties by having a different professor speak each week about the topics he or she covers. Another idea he's considering is to bring luminaries from his East Coast Rolodex to PSU to speak. And he hopes to create more connections between current students and Middle East– born students and local Middle East communities. "I want to build bridges with students of the Middle East, the academic world, and government," says Bechtold. "I try to help them understand a different culture and its history, society, and politics. That's what I've been doing." ■ Melissa Steineger, a Port/,andfreelance writer, wrote the article "Hard Times in Sharp Focus" in thefall 2009 Portland State Magazine.