Organizers of the upcoming Palestine Solidarity Movement conference on campus announced a preliminary schedule for the program this week, as university officials declined to disclose information about the security measures they will take during the conference.

David Morrell, vice president for university safety, declined to elaborate on the security plan for the Feb. 17-19 summit.

“We’ll lay out the part the public needs to know as we get closer to the conference,” Morrell said.

He added that the Department of Public Safety is taking necessary safety measures for the event, including a cooperative effort with “Student Affairs, various university offices and . federal and local law enforcement.”

“DPS, along with other offices, is working with the student sponsors to provide a safe and secure environment for the conference,” Morrell said. “As the conference approaches, attendees will be made aware of some of the security measures to help them navigate the conference.”

The conference, hosted by Georgetown’s Students for Justice in Palestine is expected to attract participants from over 100 universities. It has drawn fire from some groups that claim that the PSM hold extreme anti-Israel positions, charges that the group has repeatedly denied.

According to a preliminary schedule released by the PSM, the summit will consist of a series of workshops, a panel discussion and an open forum, among other events.

PSM spokesman Nadeem Muaddi said that this year’s conference would focus more on workshops than previous conferences. The workshops will allow attendees to “[learn] strategies and tactics on how to go about implementing changes” in promotion of the Palestinian cause, Muaddi said.

Bayaan Hamid, spokesperson for SJP, said that the workshops would provide an opportunity for attendees to share skills in developing divestment tactics. Divestment is a form of political protest that aims to reduce investment in a corporation or country whose policies or actions run counter to a group’s own interests.

“The workshops are supposed to train students and other activists attending the conference,” Hamid said.

Major speakers at the conference will include Sue Blackwell, a British lecturer who led a boycott of two Israeli universities early in 2005, Philip Farah, a senior economist at the United States General Accounting Office and Muhammed Abed, a lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, according to a Feb. 1 press release from the PSM.

Ali Bunimah, a writer and critic of Arab and Middle Eastern affairs, will be the keynote speaker at the event.

Muaddi said that several other well-known activists would participate in panel discussions to address several major Palestinian issues and concerns, such as divestment.

“The panel discussions are geared toward the activists and toward [the] public,” Muaddi said. “The goal of the panel discussion is to basically teach people . where divestment has been and where it’s going.”

Other conference programs will include a cultural event consisting of various musical and literary performances during which “all the attendees in the conference can come together and basically enjoy the Palestine culture together,” Muaddi said.

The final schedule of the conference, detailing the names of other participating activists and event locales, will be released next week by the PSM.