For Landolt, Islam's not the enemy

New offices occupy old spaces in the Eggleston Commons of Village I, and among slightly ajar office doors, one door stands out.

“Islam is not the enemy” in bold letters paints a face on the large wood panel.

“Yeah, I get a lot of questions about that,” Dr. Laura Landolt says about the sticker which stands alone.

Her office is full of books on the Middle East, and her walls are draped with Egyptian art from her trips overseas. Framed above her desk hangs a black and white photo of a younger Landolt with a mo-hawk and fish net stockings.

“That was the ‘80s” Landolt said. “But I really still am a punk at heart.”

She is a new face to the Virginia Wesleyan community. She is only in her second semester here but has already made a name for herself teaching classes with very controversial issues.

“I taught a class on the Arab-Israeli conflict last semester,” Landolt said. “My students don’t always agree with me, and I love it.”

A few of Landolt’s other classes include Comparative Politics of the Middle East and North Africa, Middle East Politics in the area of economic and political development and International Relations.

“I mainly focus on theory and policy,” Landolt said.

A native of El Paso, Tex. Landolt began her freshman year in college at the Evergreen State College in Washington State, a school known for its radical beliefs and views on domestic and world issues.

Landolt didn’t stay at Evergreen long but says that she left having learned a lot.

“It really opened my eyes to the issues that were going on in the world,” Landolt said.

Evergreen however can’t claim all the credit for sparking interest with Landolt regarding world politics.

“When I was a kid I would see images of the Vietnam war and I didn’t understand. Then there was the Cold War so I decided to study Soviet and East European Politics.”

Landolt’s search for the untold truth didn’t end with the Cold War.

“After the fall of the wall, I wanted to see who was going to be targeted as US enemy number one next. And it was the Middle East and the Muslims, so I thought it was time to study that.”

Landolt believes that education and understanding can solve many problems on the international level, which makes learning far from a chore.

“I’m interested in what keeps me going. Why is there inequality? Why is there racism and why the conflict? I feel like all these problems have a solution.”

With one year of college under her belt, Landolt went back to her roots in Texas and got her bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas - El Paso, in political science four years later.

Landolt stayed on in El Paso and began work on her master’s in Comparative Politics and International Relations. During this time her father became disabled and, despite a busy grad student schedule, she was forced to work and support her parents and a younger sister.

Even while working two jobs as a teacher’s assistant and a bartender, the pay just wasn’t enough. With her first semester of graduate school coming to an end, her parents were evicted from their home.

“It happened during finals and I had to go home and help them move.” Landolt said.

Landolt descends from a family of educators. Her father, a college professor, taught physiology and her mother was a high school speech, drama and English teacher. It is no wonder that her education didn’t end in El Paso. She went on to earn her doctorate in political science, but surprisingly enough, Landolt herself never graduated high school. She was only a sophomore when she stopped attending classes.

“I was honestly really bored.” Landolt said.

Landolt dropped out at age 15 and moved to Seattle to live with her aunt, who’s a French professor, and got her GED from a state-run organization.

“I wasn’t any kind of genius,” Landolt said. “My parents taught me how to read and they took an active interest. Instead of being miserable in high school, they thought I should just go to college.”

Landolt later had the opportunity to travel to Turkey and Egypt, where she continued to work on her master’s thesis on “Women and Democracy in the Middle East” and her dissertation. She had the opportunity to interview some of the most famous feminist leaders in Egypt, calling her experience “humbling.”

She completed her 282-page dissertation on “Norms, Population Control, US AID and Egypt” at the University of Arizona.

After Sept. 11, Landolt was sure that colleges and universities all over the country would want someone in her field of study. But after looking on the American Political Science Association website, she soon realized that wasn’t the case.

“There are only about 40 openings a year, and I applied everywhere,” Landolt said.

Cleveland, Alabama and New York made up some of places she applied and interviewed. However, concerned about how people may view her applications, Landolt kept her main concerns slightly muted.

“I am interested in social justice,” Landolt said.

“But I was writing my applications for what I thought everyone wanted me to be, instead of what I was. By the time I interviewed at VWC, I was a little more open about my interests.”

Landolt, a self proclaimed feminist, says it’s hard to break through the stereotypes associated with what she teaches.

“You are constantly having to prove yourself. I’m an American, Christian, white woman teaching people about the Middle East. You have to always be careful what you say, because I get questioned by some people from the Middle East who wonder if I know what I’m talking about and by some of my American students who think I’m ‘Anti-American’ because I sometimes criticize U.S. policy toward the region.”

Landolt hopes to enlighten her students on issues about which she is passionate.

“Hopefully I will be able to broaden Virginia Wesleyan students thinking about the Middle East and the developing world and about feminism. I want to do it all!”

Landolt emphasizes the importance of not only learning in college, but thinking about what you are learning,

“What’s college for if it can’t make you see and experience new things? It’s a waste if what you learn doesn’t open your mind.”