Birzeit University Honors Father of Palestinian Geographers

On April 25, 2015, Birzeit University honored the Birzeit University geography professor Kamal Abdel-Fattah "Father of Palestinian geographers," for his outstanding contributions since 1964 in the fields of education, culture and academia in Palestine on the Arab and international levels.

In his opening address,  the university president Khalil Hindi, expressed his pride of Abdel-Fattah achievements, noting that the Board of Trustees has recently approved, upon the recommendation of the university administration, to give the title of professor emeritus for the two professors Kamal Abdel Fattah and Salim Tamari.

The ceremony was attended by Minister of Education and Higher Education Khawla Shakhshir faculty members and Abdel-Fattah colleagues and students in the Geography Department.

Abdel-Fattah joined the university in 1978, and held several positions, including dean of the Faculty of Arts and chairman of the Middle East Studies Department and chair of the Geography Department. Also, Abdel-Fattah served as a visiting professor at Harvard, Princeton and Villanova universities in the United States, and at the universities of Bayreuth and Tubingen and Erlangen in Germany. Abdel-Fattah is a member of the Palestinian Studies Association and a founding member of the Palestinian Academic Society for International Affairs "PASSIA", and has contributed to the publishing of two international atlases.