Former NATO Ambassador, Faculty Panels Speak on the 2008 Election

October 20, 2008

Student-faculty forum convenes the following week for more discussion

Saint Leo University is honored to announce that Robert E. Hunter, former U.S. ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, will visit the main campus Oct. 28 and deliver a presentation on "U.S. Foreign Policy and the 2008 Elections." He expects to comment on U.S. relations with Europe, Russia, the Mideast, Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran.

Ambassador Hunter will speak at 4:30 p.m. in Selby Auditorium. Admission is free. The public is invited.

Ambassador Hunter has served in advisory roles to several top Democratic political candidates and party officials. In the years 1993-98, he served in the Clinton Administration as U.S. Ambassador to NATO and the Western European Union and helped force an end to the war then taking place in Bosnia. He has traveled to 90 countries over the course of his career.

Now he works as a senior advisor at Rand Corp., a prominent research organization in Washington, D.C., and continues to offer counsel on national security and foreign policy issues. The ambassador and his colleagues recently issued a far-reaching report intended to help U.S. and European nations deal more effectively with any military interventions in the future. Drawing from lessons learned in Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan, Hunter and his co-authors advise spending more on civilian aid for conflict-ridden areas and better coordination between U.S. civilian and military authorities. The report is available at www.rand.org.

The ambassador's appearance is the first event of Saint Leo University's Distinguished Speakers Series for the 2008-2009 academic year.

Politically aware students and faculty at Saint Leo are eager to continue educational discussions right up until Election Day, Nov. 4. A political forum called “Know Your Candidates' will open at 5:00 p.m. Monday, Nov. 3 in Boardrooms B and C of the Student Community Center. Speakers from various academic disciplines will compare and contrast the policy positions advanced by Barack Obama and John McCain. Topics will include the economy, the Iraq war, health care, life issues and more. The discussion will continue until 6 p.m. Those attending are welcome to carry in meals from the dining hall. The public is also invited to attend. The forum is sponsored by the Haitian Education Project in partnership with Saint Leo's Inter-American and World Studies Institute and Pi Sigma Alpha, the political science honor society.