Kurdish Political
Studies Program
Special Presentation
October 29, 2015, 3:00 p.m. - 4:30 p.m.
Cape Florida Ballroom, Student Union
University of Central Florida
Orlando, FL, U.S.A.
Welcome Remarks
Dr. Kerstin HamannPegasus Professor and Chair, Political Science Department, UCF
Inauguration of the Jalal Talabany Kurdish
Political Studies Endowed Chair
Dr. Michael D. Johnson
Dean, College of Sciences, UCF
Announcement of Student Essay Award Recipients
Dr. Güneş Murat TezcürJalal Talabany Chair of Kurdish Political Studies, UCF
Panel Discussion: Perspectives on Kurdish Politics
Moderator: Mr. John C. BersiaSpecial Assistant to the President for Global Perspectives, UCF
Dr. Najmaldin Karim
Governor, Kirkuk Governorate, Iraq
Dr. Gazi B. Zibari
Director, John C. McDonald Regional Transplant Center, and Director, WK Advanced Surgery Center, Shreveport, LA
Dr. Güneş Murat Tezcür
Jalal Talabany Chair of Kurdish Political Studies, UCF
Kurdish Political
Studies Program
John C. Bersia, a Pulitzer Prize winner in 2000, is a global educator and
commentator. He serves as Special Assistant to the President for Global Perspectives, as Director of the Global Perspectives Office and as a Uni-versity Professor at UCF. There, he chairs or co-chairs multiple programs related to global studies and is the Executive Producer and host of the “Global Perspectives Show” on WUCF TV/PBS. In addition, he chairs the Global Connections Foundation. Bersia previously served as a For-eign-Affairs Columnist for McClatchy-Tribune Information Services and the Orlando Sentinel, as well as on the latter’s Editorial Board. Earlier, he worked in the global political-risk analysis and publishing business-es, as well as for the U.S. government. Bersia pursued undergraduate studies in Political Science/International Relations and French at Clark University and UCF. He earned graduate degrees in Government from Georgetown University’s Graduate School, Public Information Adminis-tration from The American University’s College of Business AdminisAdminis-tration and International Relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science, University of London.
Kerstin Hamann is a Pegasus Professor and Chair of the Political Science
Department. She served as Vice President of the American Political Sci-ence Association and is currently Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Political Science Education. Her research interests focus on Western European politics, especially the role of labor unions in politics, and Spanish politics. She also has research interests in the area of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, with a focus on the online environment. Her current research analyzes the causes and consequences of union inclusion in reforming policies in Western Europe, looking at inclusion of unions through social pacts as well as union protest through general strikes. Hamann is a recip-ient of the UCF Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award and has also been honored with an Excellence in Professional Service Award. She received her Ph.D. in political science from Washington University.
Michael D. Johnson was named dean for the College of Sciences in
Au-gust, 2011. Formerly an associate dean in the College of Sciences and a professor of physics, he is responsible for research, graduate studies, faculty and staff relations, planning and assessment in the college. His research is in theoretical condensed matter physics. He has investigated integrable one-dimensional quantum systems, nonlinear optical proper-ties of solids, fractional statistics and pattern formation in complex fluids. His recent work focuses on electronic properties in highly correlated and nanoscale systems, including quantum dots in the fractional quantum Hall regime and high-current non-equilibrium electron transport. John-son received a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Virginia, and came to UCF in 1990 following post doctoral studies at the University of Ken-tucky and Indiana University.
Najmaldin Karim is the current governor of Kirkuk, Iraq. He was the first
Kurd to be welcomed by the U.S. State Department and testified be-fore the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1990 on Saddam Hussein’s actions in Kurdistan. He helped found and served as President of the Kurdish National Congress of North America. Karim was born in Kirkuk and studied medicine at the Mosul Medical College. He moved to the U.S. in 1976 where he completed his residency with a specializa-tion in neuroscience and was an associate clinical professor at George Washington University. He was elected to the General Assembly of the Iraqi National Congress in 1992 and was elected as representative of Kirkuk province in the Iraqi Parliament in 2010. Karim has both Iraqi and American citizenship, and prior to his return to Iraq lived in Silver Spring, Maryland with his wife and family, where he ran his medical practice.
Güneş Murat Tezcür, the Jalal Talabany Chair of Kurdish Political Studies,
is a social scientist studying political violence, identity and movements. He teaches a wide range of courses on political violence and nonvio-lence, the Middle East, democratization, social movements, and poli-tics of energy. He conducts his research in Kurdish, Persian and Turkish. His articles have appeared in many different scholarly journals such as American Political Science Review, Foreign Policy Analysis, International Studies Perspectives, Journal of Peace Research, Journal for the Scientif-ic Study of Religion, Law and Society Review, Nationalities Papers, Party Politics, Politics & Gender and Political Research Quarterly. He is also the author of Muslim Reformers in Iran and Turkey: The Paradox of Moder-ation (University of Texas Press, 2010). He received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Michigan in 2005.
Gazi B. Zibari is the Director of theJohn C. McDonald Regional
Trans-plant Center and of the Advanced Surgery Center at WK Health System. He served at LSU as Professor of Surgery, Director of Pediatric and Pan-creatic Transplantation, Chief of the Division of Transplantation, and Di-rector of Willis-Knighton/LSUHSC Regional Transplant Program. He is the Malcom Feist Chair in Transplantation Surgery and is Vice Chairman in the Department of Surgery for Academic Affairs at LSUHSC-S. Zibari has received several awards including AOA, Verstanding Award, the 1991 State Department “Best Refugee Award,” and the Ellis Island Medal of Honor. Since the early 1990s, he has returned to Kurdistan almost annu-ally to carry out medical mission work. Zibari came to the United States from Iraq as a Kurdish refugee and attended the David Lipscomb Col-lege in Nashville and the UTHSC ColCol-lege of Medicine in Memphis, TN. He completed his residency at the LSU Health Sciences Center and a transplantation fellowship at Johns Hopkins University.
Notes
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The Jalal Talabany Kurdish Political Studies Endowed Chair was established at UCF in 2015. The Chair was initiated by a $1 mil-lion donation led by Dr. Najmaldin Karim, a neurosurgeon who currently serves as the Governor of Kirkuk in Iraq. The mission of the Chair includes teaching, research and scholarly pursuits centering on Kurdish Political Studies, and further developing recognized excellence in that field. It also facilitates fellow-ships, distinguished visitors, public forums, courses, workshops and other offerings that objectively present and discuss poli-cies and conditions affecting the security, peace and demo-cratic governance of the Kurdish people, including episodes of mass violence such as the Anfal genocide.
About the Program
The Kurdish Political Studies Program was established as an initiative in 2008 and formalized as a program in 2014. The program sponsors or co-sponsors public discussions involving high-profile speakers, conferences and other meetings; sup-ports scholarship and research; and works with partners inter-nationally to broaden knowledge and understanding about the Kurds and Kurdistan. The program is jointly administered by the UCF Political Science Department and the UCF Global Perspectives Office. More information can be found at www. ucfglobalperspectives.org.
