BOYATT LECTURE IS FRIDAY IN B.A.L.

Old Dominion University's Graduate Program in International Studies, the Center for Regional and Global Study and the Office of International Programs will sponsor a special session with Ambassador Thomas Boyatt, former U.S. ambassador to South America and Africa, at 1:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 3, in Batten Arts and Letters Building room 921. The program is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be available.

Boyatt, the president of the Foreign Affairs Council and director of the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University, will lead a discussion on American Foreign Policy and discuss the importance of the art of diplomacy.

Boyatt earned his bachelor's degree from Princeton and a master's degree from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. He served in the United States Air Force and the Foreign Service. He served in embassies on every continent and was promoted to the rank of career minister of the foreign service.

Boyatt, who was once a hostage himself, received many awards for heroism, including the State Department's Meritorious Honor Award in 1969 for helping injured passengers to safety and negotiating passenger release with Syria during the hijacking of a TWA airliner by Palestinian guerillas. He received the William R. Rivkin Award, and the lifetime achievement award from the American Foreign Service Association in 2001.

For more information, contact John Heyl at 683-5195 or via e-mail at jheyl@odu.edu.