The Muslim Student Association at Dartmouth College

Dawood Yasin  has been appointed the Muslim Life and International Service & Education Advisor at the William Jewett Tucker Foundation beginning September, 2009. In this role he will provide spiritual and religious support, offer educational seminars, and lead congregational prayers for Muslim residents at Dartmouth College and in the greater Hanover area. Dawood will also work to foster understanding and dialogue amongst the diverse campus groups by building and maintaining interfaith relations. In addition, he will assist students in the International Service and Education program (I-SEP) in upholding their commitment to responsible citizenship, value-based leadership, and enrichment of their education in order to promote ethics-based interactions within a globalized community.  His specific assignments within I-SEP include advising an international alternative spring break trip, international service fellowships, and Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week programming.

Dawood began his studies in international relations at Southern Connecticut State University.  However he chose to interrupt his studies in 1991, accepting a job in the advertizing industry allowing him to work in Paris, London, New York, Milan and South Africa for five years. During his residence in South Africa Dawood converted to Islam and returned briefly to the United States. He then spent five years in Damascus, studying Arabic, Islam, and spirituality. Upon completion of his studies he returned to New Haven, CT where he taught and engaged in research at Yale University. As a teaching assistant he taught Elementary Standard Arabic and Modern Standard Spoken Arabic to undergraduate and graduate students. He also worked with Dr. Bassam Frangieh in research for his book, Anthology of Arabic Literature, Culture, and Thought from Pre-Islamic Times to the Present. During this time he served as the imam of a local mosque in New Haven.

Most recently, Dawood served as Director of Outreach at the Zayed Center for Islamic Culture in the United Arab Emirates. There he gained considerable insight and experience in interfaith work. He also engaged in public speaking within the U.A.E. and abroad, emphasizing ethics and tolerance in addressing misconceptions within and between the Islamic and non-Islamic communities. Dawood spends his summers as an Arabic language instructor at the Zaytuna Institute in Berkeley, California.

Dawood was born and raised in Nantucket, Massachusetts. Dawood completed his B.S. in Community Studies from the University of Massachusetts at Boston. Dawood lives with his wife and three daughters in Vermont. He and his wife enjoy homeschooling their children, taking short hikes, baking, and archery.

R. David Coolidge, the Muslim Advisor from Fall 2008 - Spring 2009, posted some of his Friday sermons given at Dartmouth on the Tucker Foundation webpage. They can be found here:

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~tucker/rsl/ministers/coolidge_sermons.html

In addition, he also compiled a list of some unique websites directly relevant to a contemporary Muslim college student in the US.

+ Scholarships

http://www.islamicscholarshipfund.org/

http://home.comcast.net/~aymanfadel/fef.html

+ Summer Programs

http://www.muslimstudentnetwork.org/

http://www.alimprogram.com/index.shtml

http://fawakih.com/web/index.php

+ Readings

http://www.nawawi.org/courses/index_reading_room.html

http://www.zaytuna.org/seasonsjournal/articles.cfm

Al-Nur has had an advisor since its inception as a Dartmouth organization in 1983. For over two decades, the advisor was a volunteer; sometimes a faculty member, sometimes a committed local community member, and other such arrangements. More recently, the advisor has been a paid employee of the Tucker Foundation. The original position within the Tucker Foundation was known as the “Muslim Advisor,” and it was a part-time role. It was first held by Irfan Aziz (2006-2007), and then R. David Coolidge (2008-2009), who both commuted to campus from over 2 hours away in order to fulfill their duties. Responding to student requests to expand the position, the Tucker Foundation created a new full-time position, entitled the “Advisor for Campus Muslim Life and the International Service & Education Programs.” This is a joint position which emphasizes both aspects of Tucker’s mission, namely “faith” and “service,” and which will provide a new level of support to the Al-Nur student leadership.  Dawood Yasin is the first individual to serve Al-Nur and the Dartmouth community in this new, expanded role.

The Al-Nur advisor is available for individual meetings, event planning, outreach, and more. To contact the advisor, please click here.