A Chair For The New Kurdish Chair
Güneş Murat Tezcür, Ph.D., the Jalal Talabany Kurdish Political Studies Endowed Chair at UCF, was inaugurated on October 29th, as part of the Kurdish Political Studies Program’s panel presentation on Kurdish Political Issues.
Dr. Kerstin Hamann, Chair of the Political Science Department and Co-Chair of the Kurdish Political Studies Program at UCF, welcomed and thanked the audience for attending the presentation, while Dean Michael Johnson, Ph.D.,led the inauguration. Dean Johnson that the Chair “… is a first for UCF and the first of its kind in the United States.”
The endowed chair was established donation led by Najmaldin Karim, M.D., a neurosurgeon, who currently serves as Governor of the Kirkuk Governorate in Iraq and is president of the Washington Kurdish Institute, a non-profit center dedicated to research and education of Kurdish people worldwide.
Dean Johnson welcomed Dr. Tezcür to the college and congratulated him on becoming the Chair by presenting him with an actual chair, engraved to recognize the Jalal Talabany Chair of Kurdish Political Studies.
The new position held by Dr. Tezcür is designed to help UCF expand its offerings related to Kurdish issues. Specifically, the mission includes teaching, research and scholarly pursuits centering on Kurdish Political Studies, and further developing recognized excellence in that field.
Following the inauguration, Dr. Tezcür announced the student essay award recipients for the Future of the Kurds & Kurdistan Essay Contest. This contest invited UCF graduate and undergraduate students to write an opinion piece on the roles played by the Kurds and Kurdistan in the 21st century.
The following students were recognized as winners of the contest:
Shreya Labh – Best undergraduate essay award
Grayson Lanza – Runner-up undergraduate essay award
Peyman Asadzade – Best graduate essay award
The rest of the program focused on a panel discussion moderated by John C. Bersia, Special Assistant to the President for Global Perspectives, Director, and co-chair of the Kurdish Political Studies Program, on erspectives on Kurdish Politics. Dr. Tezcür, Dr. Karim, and Gazi B. Zibari, M.D., director of the John C. McDonald Regional Transplant Center and WK Advanced Surgery Center in Shreveport, LA, participated on the panel.