TAMIU Professor Named FDD Academic Fellow

Texas A&M International University professor Dr. John Kilburn, College of Arts and Sciences, department of Behavioral Sciences, has been selected as a 2011-2012 Academic Fellow with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD) in Washington, D.C.

As a FDD Fellow, Dr. Kilburn will participate in a unique educational program focusing on the threat of terrorism to democracy.

2011-2012 Academic Fellows will travel to Israel for an intensive course in terrorism studies, and how democracies can defeat the worldwide terrorism threat. The 10-day learning experience will take place at Tel Aviv University from June 11 - June 22, where U.S.-based teaching and research professionals will be provided with cutting edge information about defeating terrorist groups.

“Terrorism is the greatest threat today to the world’s democracies, including the United States and our allies around the globe,” said Clifford May, president of FDD, “To win the war against terrorism, we must win the war of ideas by promoting democracy and defeating the totalitarian ideologies that drive and justify terrorism.”

The program features a series of lectures by academics, diplomats, and military officials from India, Israel, Jordan, Turkey and the U.S. Participants receive hands-on experience through field trips to military, police and immigration facilities throughout Israel.

Kilburn, a member of the TAMIU faculty since 2005, received his doctoral degree in Sociology from Louisiana State University. In addition to his teaching and research activities, he is president of the TAMIU chapter of Phi Kappa Phi.

FDD is a non-profit, non-partisan policy institute headquartered in Washington, D.C. that seeks to educate Americans about the terrorist threat to democracies worldwide. FDD produces independent analyses of global terrorist threats that explore the historical, cultural, philosophical and ideological factors that drive terrorism and threaten the individual freedoms guaranteed within democratic societies.

For more information, please contact Dr. John Kilburn at 326.3221 or e-mail jckilburn@tamiu.edu.

For more information on the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies or the Academic Fellowship program, please contact Dana Murphy, Campus Programs Coordinator, at 202.207.0190 or visit https://www.fdd.org/

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