On March 30, I got the chance to speak with a small high school class at St. George’s Episcopal School in rural Georgia via Skype.
Speaking at the University of Louisville
This week I continued my cross country tour, hitting Kentucky & Tennessee. I made a pit stop in Kentucky to speak to students at the University of Louisville!
Speaking at the University of Baltimore
On Monday, I had the opportunity to speak to students at the University of Baltimore about countering Islamophobia through open, positive dialogue. It was an honor, as always!
I'll also be speaking at several other campuses over the next few weeks. Interested in having me speak at your event? Let's get in touch.
Speaking at Johns Hopkins University
This week I had the opportunity to return to the campus of Johns Hopkins University, where I completed my MA/MBA years ago, to kick off the Bloomberg School of Public Health's incredibly important new "Understanding American Muslims" seminar.
If you're in the area, I urge you to support this timely new endeavor. If you're not, don't worry – they livestreamed Wednesday's event, so you can watch this seminar series from anywhere.
You can read more about it here:
Mansoor Shams, a Muslim American veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, invited his audience Wednesday to call out whatever stereotypes came to mind just by looking at him.
When, inevitably, no one did, Shams supplied them himself: "The terrorist. The Bin Laden. The ISIS guy."
Shams, speaking at a Johns Hopkins seminar on American Muslims, challenged everyone to grapple directly with those kind of thoughts rather than flicking them away to the subconscious.
Interested in having me speak at your event or institution?
Get in touch and let's see what we can do.
Speaking to Kids in the Hawkeye State
Last week I had the chance to Skype into a classroom of middle school students in a small town in Iowa – population 3,500. Had a great time talking to these incredibly bright seventh and eight graders! In fact, I'm pretty sure I came away from our discussion having learned just as much as they did.
Veterans & Muslims United Against Hatred
This weekend, I helped organize an event titled "Veterans and Muslims United Against Hatred" at the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community in Baltimore's mosque.
I had the great honor of speaking alongside Retd. Col. Scott Cooper of Marine Corps, founder of Veterans for American Ideals, an organization I've worked with previously; Sarah Feinberg, U.S. Marine Veteran now working as senior financial analyst at The Washington Post; and AMC Baltimore's own president, Dr. Faheem Younus.
You can read more about this event here.