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CCSU Middle East Insights Lecture Series Features German Diplomat and Italian Nobel Prize Nominee Discussing the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process on February 26 at 4 p.m.; Public Invited

NEW BRITAIN -- February 19, 2008 – The next session of Central Connecticut State University’s Middle East Lecture Series will feature a discussion by Dr. Wolfgang Vorwerk, the German Consul General in Boston, and noted Italian educator Dr. Bruno Ficili.   Their discussion, "The Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process: Assessments by Two Europeans," will take place on Tuesday, February 26, 2008 at 4 p.m. in Room 105 of the Vance Academic Center at CCSU.  The public is invited to attend the lecture, and free parking is available in campus parking lots.

"Dr. Vorwerk is the German Consul General in Boston, who was previously Germany's top diplomat in the Middle East and who wrote a draft of the Bush Road Map Peace Plan, and Dr. Ficili is a world renowned peace activist from Sicily who has in the recent past been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize,” said Dr. Norton Mezvinsky, host for the Middle East Insights lecture series.

Dr. Wolfgang K. Vorwerk, who has been Consul General of the Federal Republic of Germany in Boston since August 2004, is responsible for a consular district that covers Connecticut (except Fairfield County), Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont.  After graduating from Würzburg University’s law school, Dr. Vorwerk joined the German Foreign Service, where his major fields of specialization became European and Middle Eastern Affairs. He came to Boston from the Berlin Foreign Office, where he worked for six years, first as Head of the Near East Division, then as Director for Near and Middle Eastern Affairs, the Maghreb and the Sudan with the rank of ambassador (Assistant Secretary of State).

Dr. Bruno Ficili, a leading partner in CCSU programs in Sicily, has organized many peace conferences that have attracted government officials, educators, journalists and economists from around the globe.  “Due to his persistence, the 10th International Education for Peace Conference was held on the former missile base at Cosimo, Sicily,” Mezvinsky said. “On ground that once housed soldiers and missiles, conference participants discussed the urgency of educating today’s young people about peace.”

Mezvinsky also noted:  “Dr. Ficili’s sincerity and impartial dedication have gained him such enormous stature that he has been able to meet with leaders in Croatia and Bosnia in efforts to halt fighting in those countries.  He has participated in mediation efforts between Singalese and Tamils in Sri Lanka, as well as between Turks and Kurds.  And, when not mediating peace efforts, he has helped deliver needed supplies to troubled areas.”

When he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree by CCSU in 1996, Ficili was hailed as the living embodiment of a quote made famous by the late President Dwight D. Eisenhower:  “I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than are governments.  Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of their way and let them have it.”

Dr. Norton Mezvinsky, who has the distinction of being a CSU Professor and is a professor history at CCSU, organized the Middle East Insights lecture series in 2006.  He continues to arrange for a variety of prominent Middle East scholars and experts in diverse areas to speak at CCSU during the current spring semester.

The lecture series is sponsored by CCSU’s School of Arts and Sciences, the Committee on Middle Eastern Studies of the George R. Muirhead Center for International Education, the Peace Studies Program and the CCSU History Department.

Directions to CCSU are at the University’s website: http://www.ccsu.edu/visit.htm