Renowned Arab American professor of political science and author Dr. Michael W. Suleiman died this week at the age of 76 after a long battle with cancer.

Professor Michael W. Suleiman

Suleiman was in the process of  finishing an annotated bibliography
on the Arab American community and working on a book-length manuscript
on Arabs in America. He had also just finished editing a volume of
articles presented at a conference on Arab American women which he
helped to organize. The volume is yet to be released.Suleiman is survived by his wife Penny Suleiman. The memorial
service will be May 22 at All Faiths Chapel at Kansas State University
at 10:00 a.m.  In lieu of  flowers, contributions can be made to The
Michael W.  Suleiman Chair for Arab and Arab American Studies and sent
to the KSU  Foundation, 2323 Anderson Ave, Manhattan, KS 66502. This
Chair was established by a student of Mike’s, John Hofmeister. Students and friends continue to contribute to it.Suleiman is the author of over seventy scholarly publications on
comparative and international politics of the Middle East as well as
American-Arab relations, and the Arab American community, including:
“Political Parties in Lebanon,” (1967); “American Images of Middle East
Peoples: Impact of the High School,” (1977); “The Arabs in the Mind of
America,” (1988); “Arab Americans: Continuity and Change,” (1989),
co-editor and co-author; “U.S. Policy on Palestine from Wilson to
Clinton,” (1995), editor and co-author; and “Arabs in America: Building a
New Future (1999), editor and co-author. Suleiman was co-editor
(with John Entelis) of Westview Press Series on “State, Culture and
Society in Arab North Africa” (1989-1999). He was a member of the
Editorial Boards of five journals dealing with the Middle East, namely
International Journal of Middle East Studies (1982-88), Arab Studies
Quarterly, Journal of Arab Affairs (1981-93), The Maghreb Review, Arab
Journal of International Studies (1987-92), and Journal of Muslim
Minority Affairs.Suleiman obtained his Ph.D. in Political Science at the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 1965. He joined Kansas State University almost immediately. He was University Distinguished Professor of Political Science there. Also at Kansas State, he was a faculty member in the American Ethnic Studies Program (AESP) and had served as a member of the Governance Board of AESP (1987-1989). He received the Distinguished Graduate Faculty Member Award (1987), and was selected as a Mid-America State Universities Association Honor Lecturer (1986-1987).Suleiman had received several research awards, including an Institute for Advanced Study fellowship, Princeton, NJ (1994-95) to write about Arabs in the U.S.; a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grant (1989-1991) to do research on Arab Americans; a CIES-Islamic Civilization grant (1984) to do research in Tunisia; Fulbright Hays Fellowships (2003, Summers, 1993, 1991 and 1983-84) to conduct research in Tunisia, Egypt and Morocco respectively; an American Research Center in Egypt Fellowship (1972-73) for research in Egypt; and a Ford Foundation Faculty Research Fellowship (1969-70). Suleiman had lectured widely both in the United States and abroad to university, government, business and community groups.Suleiman served on the Boards of Directors or Advisory Boards of the following organizations, among others: The Association of Arab-American University Graduates, AAUG (President, 1977); Middle East Studies Association of North America, MESA (1980-82), and Committee member (1972-75) and Chair (1975-78) of the MESA Committee on Pre-Collegiate Education; the American Institute of Maghrib Studies, AIMS (1985-88); the American Research Center in Egypt, ARCE (1991-94, 1994-97); Arab American National Museum (2001- ); Lebanese Emigration Research Center (2003- ); H-Mideast-Politics (Online) (2002- ); Census Information Center (2001- ); and the Arab Sociological Association (1996-99). Suleiman acted as a consultant, commentator, adviser or reviewer for numerous groups including the U.S. Department of Education, Institute of International Education, National Science Foundation, League of Arab States, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. He had been interviewed widely and frequently in the press both in the U.S. and abroad, including PBS, CBS TV, New York Times, Washington Post, C-Span, Cable News Network (CNN) TV and National Public Radio (NPR), where he has had over thirty (30) interviews.