A new Assyrian history class is being offered for the Spring semester of 2018. It is only one of Stan State's many plans to support the Assyrian community within the university and throughout the Stanislaus County region. The class is listed in the university's class schedule under HIST 4950 as "Selected Topics in History," but its true title is "Modern Assyrian History: A People's History in Diaspora." The class is on Mondays from 4:30 p.m. to 7:10 p.m. and is taught by a new Stan State faculty member, Dr. Stacy Fahrenthold. "Students will build a digital exhibit devoted to modern Assyrian history based on original sources. No previous experience with Assyrian studies is required," reads a flyer for the new course. Since President Junn's induction as the new president of Stan State, the university has been more open to supporting Assyrian-related studies and events. This support is culminating into a project to turn Stan State into a hub for Assyrian research. During President Junn's inauguration on March 30, a group of Assyrians from the Central California Assyrian Student and Youth Association (CCASYA) danced traditional Assyrian dances while wearing traditional attire outside of the Faculty Development Center as President Junn and a trail of professors paraded by. On April 27, a peace pole was erected in the quad that had 16 panels engraved with the words "May Peace Prevail on Earth" in different languages, one of which is in Assyrian. An Assyrian Genocide Remembrance event was held in the Main Theater on Aug. 7, accompanied by a gallery featuring four Assyrian artists that remained in the University Art Gallery from Aug. 7-18. Also, an Assyrian lecturer from San Jose State University, Prof. Wilfred Bet-Alkhas, led an Assyrian and Aramaic language event titled "A Brief History of the Modern Assyrian Scripts" at Stan State on Nov. 3. Dr. Fahrenthold is Stan State's new director of the Francis Sarguis Modern Assyrian Heritage Collection, a key component of the new Modern Assyrian Heritage Project. She was introduced at the Assyrian Genocide Remembrance event and helped plan the recent Assyrian language event through the Francis Sarguis project. The Modern Assyrian Heritage Collection, which is located on the second floor of the Vasche Library Building, was funded by Dr. Francis Sarguis in 2015. It is currently a selection of 250 tangible sources with even more titles available online. The collection contains histories of the Assyrian people and is one of the largest archives of its kind in the nation. Dr. Fahrenthold invites anyone interested to take advantage of the collection to produce their own scholarly research and to add to the archive. History graduate student Katie Jaycox utilized the collection for a research paper, "The New Eden: The Story of Dr. Isaac Adams," which is about Assyrian migration into the valley. Jaycox won second place in the 2017 Annual Northern California Phi Alpha Theta History Honor Conference for her work. Jaycox's published research is just the beginning for the Modern Assyrian Heritage Collection. Dr. James Tuedio, who serves as the Dean for the College of the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, and Dr. Fahrenthold plan on expanding the collection into the Modern Assyrian Heritage Project. "We're hoping to build on that oral history collection through doing more interviews in the Turlock community or in [the] broader Central California area amongst anyone who would like to share their family story, to share with us anything they would like to share about this community with Stanislaus State students," Dr. Fahrenthold said. The stories will be compiled to create an exhibit that will likely be digital and interactive. Dr. Fahrenthold also stresses that the project is open to everyone who would like to contribute and that the oral histories of Assyrians in the community will be kept safe. "I am a historian...If you trust me with your stories, I will preserve them, and I will keep them," she said. "I want to help capture, construct and present a modern Assyrian history that is inclusive and which emphasizes the resilience of the Assyrian community." The project will not only include scholarly publications, but will also involve the public through local media outlets. Dr. Tuedio, Dr. Fahrenthold and others who are involved with the project have set a single overarching goal for the future of the compendium. "The collection will, in five years' time, be the largest such collection in the United States. It will contain books and documents, letters and diaries, recordings and digital items in several languages on Assyrian history from A.D. 300 to the present day," Dr. Fahrenthold said. Dr. Tuedio has also been working with an assistant professor of geography, Jos