GUST Hosts Skype Seminar with Dr. Gregory Gause III

• Prominent scholar leads seminar on tackling religious extremism

• Seminar is part of the Challenging Extremism Initiative co-sponsored by the US Department of State

• Lively Q&A session covered portrayal of Muslims in US Media

Kuwait City, November 21st, 2015: Gulf University for Science and Technology (GUST), in collaboration with the US Embassy in Kuwait, organized a Skype seminar open to the public, whose aim was to raise awareness among students about the risks of extremist violence and how terrorists are using the internet and social media to advance their aims. The seminar is part of a wider initiative lead by the US Department of State and the Peer to Peer (P2P): Challenging Extremism initiative facilitated by EdVenture, an organization dedicated to developing innovative industry-education partnership programs.  

Leading the seminar was Dr. Gregory Gause III, who is the current Head of the International Affairs Department at the Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M University and a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Center in Doha, Qatar. He is an expert on terrorism and the author of three books and numerous articles on the politics of the Middle East, with a particular focus on the Arabian Peninsula and the Arabian Gulf. The topics covered were varied as he touched upon the origins of ISIS, how they rose to prominence, and coverage of ISIS and Muslims in US media. To end, a lively Q&A session was held where students asked Dr. Gause pertinent questions on how the Arab and Muslim world are portrayed in the US and what can be done to change negative perceptions.

Professor Donald Bates, GUST President, said, “To have Dr. Gause join us, albeit virtually, is a thoroughly enriching experience for our students. It is important that we as a university find new ways to engage our students and expose them to the ideas and thoughts of academics that they would not normally get a chance to meet.”

Also on the day, a short video created by GUST students was screened to highlight the importance of tackling hate speech. This video is part of the “Raise Your Words” campaign, which is part of the Challenging Extremism Initiative co-sponsored by the US Department of State.

The Skype seminar with Dr. Gause is part of a series of organized by GUST. On the same week, a similar event was organized whereby Hugh Naylor from the Washington Post discussed media reporting in the Middle East.