Fresno City Council Honors Fresno State Professor Sudarshan Kapoor

California State University, Fresno professor Sudarshan Kapoor was recognized today (July 17) by the Fresno City Council for his decades of work to promote peace locally and throughout the world.

The council presented Kapoor a proclamation honoring his work and congratulating him on his recent appointment to the board of directors of the International Peace Research Association Foundation.
In accepting the honor, Kapoor told the council he was "humbled and overwhelmed by this gesture." He also said he accepts the honor on behalf of the many individuals in the community working for peace.

He said he will continue to work to "build a culture of peace, not violence."

Kapoor, a professor of social work education, is one of 21 directors, including 13 from the United States, named to the peace foundation. It is a nonprofit organization that supports the activities of the International Peace Research Association, which, since 1965, has "sought to enhance the processes of peace."

Kapoor, a member of the Fresno State faculty since 1967, is founding director of the Peace and Conflict Studies program and has coordinated "Stop the Hate" week activities on campus and in the community.

He also helped establish the university's Peace Garden.

Kapoor co-founded the Fresno Center for Non-violence and is a member of the Martin Luther King Jr. Unity Committee, the Fresno Human Relations Commission and the Multi-Cultural and Gender Relations Committee. He has served as the coordinator of the Central California Multicultural Council since 1999. In 2000, he was the recipient of Temple Beth Israel's Social Action Award.

He is working on a publication entitled, "Cesar Chavez and His Spirituality."

The International Peace Research Association's purpose is to advance interdisciplinary research into the conditions of peace and the causes of war and other forms of violence. The association is concerned with stable peace and encourages worldwide cooperation designed to assist the advance of peace research and education. It promotes national studies and teaching related to the pursuit of world peace, strives to facilitate contacts and cooperation between scholars and educators throughout the world and encourages the worldwide dissemination of results of peace research.