Community Gathers for UMass Lowell Day Without Violence

04/10/2015

Contacts: Nancy Cicco, 978-934-4944 or Nancy_Cicco@uml.edu and Christine Gillette, 978-934-2209 or Christine_Gillette@uml.edu

LOWELL, Mass. – Shibley Telhami, who advised Congress on policy during the Iraq War, will discuss international relations in a free program for the campus and community during UMass Lowell’s Day Without Violence on Tuesday, April 14.

Telhami’s work focuses on the Middle East, how the media helps form public opinion and political identity in the region and how shifting beliefs are reshaping foreign policy. His presentation, “America in Arab Eyes and Arabs in American Eyes,” will bring together UMass Lowell students, faculty, staff, community leaders and the public to learn about peace-building. The event will be held at 12:30 p.m. at O’Leary Library Learning Commons, Room 222 on UMass Lowell’s South Campus at 61 Wilder St., Lowell.

“In this time of rising violence in the Middle East and beyond, there has never been a greater need for understanding of the multicultural world we live in today. UMass Lowell is pleased to welcome Dr. Telhami, an authority on public perceptions that can lead to further conflict or peace,” said Prof. Paula Rayman, a senior Fulbright scholar and director of both UMass Lowell’s Middle East Center for Peace, Development and Culture and the Peace and Conflict Studies Program.

Now in its 20th year, the Day Without Violence is observed annually on college and university campuses nationwide in honor of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s work advancing social justice. Previous Day Without Violence speakers at UMass Lowell have included anti-apartheid leader Albie Sachs, who presented a program on South Africans’ quest to achieve equality; former Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis III, who discussed gun policies; and activist John Prendergast, who spoke about his work to end human-rights violations in Africa.

The event is presented by UMass Lowell’s Peace and Conflict Studies Institute, the Peace and Conflict Studies Program, the Office of Community Relations, the Greeley Scholar for Peace Studies Committee and the Center for Public Opinion.

Telhami is the Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development at University of Maryland, College Park and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, where he is a member of the Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World, which engages and informs policymakers and the public about how developments in Muslim countries may affect those countries’ relationships with the United States. He was a consultant to congressional members of the 2006 Iraq Study Group charged with recommending national policy on the war and has served as an adviser to George Mitchell in his former role as United States special envoy for Middle East peace; the United States Mission to the United Nations; and former U.S. Rep. Lee Hamilton.

Telhami is well known for his analysis of international affairs, including a recent Washington Post commentary on how public opinion is playing a role in defining the relationship between the United States and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Telhami is the author of several books including “The World Through Arab Eyes: Arab Public Opinion and the Reshaping of the Middle East,” “The Peace Puzzle: America’s Quest for Arab-Israeli Peace, 1989 to 2011” and “The Stakes: America in the Middle East,” selected by Foreign Affairs magazine as one its top five books of the year.

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