LAWRENCEVILLE -- Dr. Ibrahim Saleh, a professor of mass communications at the American University in Cairo (AUC), Egypt, will speak on “Stereotypes in U.S. and Arab Media and Their Effects on Civil Society,” on Wednesday, May 30 at Rider University.

Dr. Saleh will present his lecture at 12:30 p.m. in Sweigart Board Room in the College of Business Administration as part of the Global and Multinational Studies (GMS) speaker series.  His talk is free and open to the public.  His visit stems from the creation of Rider’s Student Global Village, which engages Rider students and AUC students in a semester-long sustained dialogue about contentious religious, racial and cultural issues via videoconferencing.

Initiated three years ago by Dr. Roberta Fiske-Rusciano, adjunct assistant professor of political science, and her husband, Frank Rusciano, professor of political science, the Student Global Village is being offered in the Fall 2007 and Spring 2008.  It is part of the Difficult Dialogues initiative, partially funded by the Ford Foundation.  For a sample video clip, please go to:  www.difficultdialogues.org

“Classes of Rider and AUC students have spent twelve weeks each semester for the past three years working through difficult issues,” said Dr. Fiske-Rusciano, who along with Dr. Rusciano has published scholarly papers together and attended conferences with Dr. Saleh.  “We are very excited about Dr. Saleh’s first visit to Rider. We look forward to hearing his perspectives on the stereotypes perpetuated by U.S. and Arab media.”