The University of Massachusetts Boston celebrated and launched the David Matz Fellowship on April 30 to recognize the contributions of David Matz, founder of the graduate certificate program in dispute resolution at UMass Boston.

The event was part of the annual Sylvia and Benjamin Slomoff Lectureship, sponsored by UMass Boston alumnus Ben Slomoff.

Special guest of the night was Trita Parsi, an award-winning author, 2010 recipient of the Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order, and the president of the National Iranian American Council.

The celebration opened with Chancellor J. Keith Motley welcoming guests, speaking about the importance of the conflict resolution program at UMass Boston, celebrating its 30th anniversary.

“Today, we’re so proud that over 400 alumni transverse the globe with the skills they learned at the University of Massachusetts Boston,” said the chancellor.

Following his speech, several of David Matz’s friends and colleagues expressed admiration and thanked him for his efforts to promote peace and diplomacy in the world through the conflict resolution program.

Parsi, an expert on US-Iranian relations and geopolitics of the Middle East, opened his short lecture explaining his change in topic of the keynote. Initially, he was planning on talking about the geopolitics of the Middle East. After learning of the conflict resolution focus of the evening, he decided to speak in regard to Iran’s nuclear program agreement with the US, one which is very unique.

“This was not a border dispute between two or three countries. This involved the entire world, as clarified by the P5+1 meetings,” said Parsi.

“It was an issue that was on the brink of war; we now know that in 2012, there were [a few moments] in which this could have led to a military confrontation. It was solved through diplomacy before it went to war. We’re not talking about the usual situation in which diplomacy comes in to clean out the mess that war has created,” continued Parsi.