Dr.Jamal Nassar, Dean, CSBS

With maps of the Middle East and Palestine as a backdrop, on Tuesday, March 9, 2009 Dean Jamal Nassar stood before a standing room only crowd in the CSU Santos Manuel Student Union Event Center to give a talk on “The Palestine Experience.”  Dean Nassar was born in Jerusalem and is an internationally renowned scholar on the topic of the Middle East.  He was invited by the University Diversity Committee as part of its series, “Conversations on Diversity.”

A diverse crowd of students, faculty, staff, and members of the surrounding community were in attendance.  The Dean began with a short video of an Israeli soldier speaking about the suffering of the Palestinians and her desire for the seemingly endless conflict to cease.  Dean Nassar then proceeded to give a history of Palestine and the formation of the state of Israel.  He ended with an update of the current situation, including recent attacks on Gaza by Israeli soldiers, and a call for dialogue that will bring about a just solution to the conflict.  Follow-up questions were thoughtful and respectful. 

The Dean’s “conversation” was the University Diversity Committee’s Winter offering, preceded in the Fall by a fascinating discussion of “Sex and Gender in the Real World.” The Spring 2009 conversation on May 19 at noon in the Event Center will feature a speaker from the Simon Wiesenthal Center who is a survivor of the Jewish holocaust.  These conversations are intended to address topics that might benefit the entire campus and surrounding communities.  The committee’s goal for the Dean’s talk was to open a dialogue in regard to a topic that has not effectively been covered by the media in order to give the audience a scholarly and insider’s view of a part of the world that, sadly, we know too little of.  Yet its impact on each of us cannot be overestimated, either through a loved one living in that region of the world, or someone we know being deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, or rising gas prices, or fear that we will experience another 9/11—in any number of ways.

The committee members agreed that Dean Nassar was just the person to begin the dialogue in this community and were pleased to have this distinguished scholar as its Winter conversationalist. 
By-Dr.Mary Texeira