In July 2013, Jumana Jaber arrived in Montclair, ready to take up her position as a visiting assistant professor of Art and Design at Montclair State University. But Jaber is not a typical new faculty member: she is a protected visiting scholar, who, along with her husband and son, has been displaced by the Syrian civil war. <\/p>\n
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\u201cWe left because our lives were in danger,\u201d Jaber says. \u201cThe violence in the country was only intensifying and we needed to leave.\u201d <\/p>\n
Jaber came to the attention of Marina Cunningham, the Global Education Center\u2019s executive director of international affairs, when the IIE, or Institute of International Education\u2019s Scholar Rescue Fund (SRF) sent her a list of scholars needing placements. <\/p>\n
\u201cI thought her CV was very interesting and unusual,\u201d Cunningham recalls. \u201cShe\u2019s an artist and a designer, so I thought our Department of Art and Design would be interested.\u201d After a round of Skype interviews, Jaber was offered the opportunity to teach visual arts and theater design for the departments of Art and Design and Theatre and Dance. \u201cThey were delighted to find out that she would be interested in teaching painting as well as design for an opera the College of the Arts will be staging in spring 2014,\u201d Cunningham adds. \u201cShe has a one-year renewable contract with SRF and the University.\u201d <\/p>\n
Montclair State has supported refugee scholars in the past from Rwanda, Iraq and Iran. The IIE provides a partial grant and the University matches at least 50 percent of that funding. \u201cBesides Jaber, we have another SRF scholar from Syria at present,\u201d says Cunningham. \u201cBut he doesn\u2019t want people back home to know this.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cWe Left Everything\u201d<\/strong> \u201cSyria has many differences between people,\u201d Jaber explains. \u201cEvery day, I didn\u2019t know what would happen.\u201d Eventually, the family was forced to flee. \u201cWe left everything: our home, our studio, our family,\u201d she remembers. \u201cWe took some clothes, our IDs, some photos and locked the door and left. Our neighbor now waters the flowers in our garden.\u201d <\/p>\n Since their arrival in America, things have changed for the better for the family. \u201cIt\u2019s so different now. We live in peace and security.\u201d She is enjoying her new life and appreciates the calm and quiet of the area. \u201cOur neighbors have been very friendly,\u201d she adds. <\/p>\n Her 19-year-old son, Sam, is a Red Hawk freshman studying computer science thanks to a scholarship from the University. \u201cHe has totally different interests,\u201d says Jaber. \u201cHe likes it here very much. The University has supported him tremendously and have done everything they can to make his transition to school here very smooth. They take good care of their international students.\u201d <\/p>\n Her husband is learning English at the moment. \u201cSince he\u2019s an artist, he keeps himself busy making small sculptures,\u201d Jaber says. <\/p>\n Settling into a New Life<\/strong> The family members are settling into their lives here with the support of the IIE and the University. \u201cIt\u2019s tough when you have to suddenly pick up your belongings and leave your home country indefinitely,\u201d Jaber says. \u201cThe IIE and Montclair State have been tremendously helpful \u2013 from official documents to finding housing \u2013 they\u2019ve helped us every step of the way.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Montclair State provides a safe haven for Syrian artist Jumana Jaber<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":112113,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-210_art-design-news","category-190_theatre-dance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12113\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
As a painter and interior designer in Syria, Jaber\u2019s work had been exhibited in museums in Damascus. She taught art at the University of Kalamoon in Damascus, where, she says that \u201cmany students liked me and the way I do art.\u201d Her husband, sculptor Nazih Alhajari, also taught at the university. She hopes to eventually exhibit her work in this country. <\/p>\n
Jaber is enjoying her new students. \u201cStudents are students everywhere. But I have noticed that my students here are much more independent,\u201d she reports. \u201cThey express themselves freely, are confident in their ideas \u2013 and that goes a long way.\u201d<\/p>\n