March 30, 2010

UMass Lowell’s Middle East Center for Peace, Development and Culture will sponsor a lecture, ‘Playing for Peace: How sports can get us to our goal,’ on Monday, Apr. 12 from 7-8:30 p.m. at the UMass Lowell Inn & Conference Center.

The lecture, free and open to the public, will be delivered by Dr. Gavriel Salomon, the director of the Center for Research on Peace Education at the University of Haifa in Israel. Dr. Salomon is serving the 2009-10 year as UMass Lowell’s Greely Scholar for Peace Studies.

The presentation will focus on how bi-national sports teams are one of the most effective tools at creating peace; as well as the reasons why sports can be a vehicle for peace, even in deeply divided ethnic conflicts.

Dr. Salomon was the Dean of the Faculty of Education and an educational psychology professor at the University of Haifa. He is co-chair of the board of directors of Sikkuy, the Association for the Advancement of Civic Equality in Israel, and chair of the Academic Council of the Arab Academic College El-Kassami.

Dr. Salomon received the Israel Award in 2001 for his work in the field of peace education and is widely recognized as an expert and innovator in peace education. In 2006, Dr. Salomon was elected as fellow of the International Academy of Education. He has authored several books, including Communication and Education and Technology and Education in the Information Age and was the editor of Peace Education: The Concept, The Principles and The Research.

Dr. Salomon received his B.A. and M.A. from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and his Ph.D. in educational psychology and communication from Stanford University.

The UMass Lowell Inn & Conference Center, formerly Doubletree Hotel, is located downtown at 50 Warren Street. For more information, contact Seth Izen, project manager of UMass Lowell’s Middle East Center for Peace, Development and Culture, at (978) 934-4307.