For Immediate Release—Tuesday, Oct. 9, 2007

Contact:
Tony Hoppa
Assistant Vice President for Communications
(585) 245-5516
thoppa@geneseo.edu

Cornell University's Nicholas van de Walle to Deliver
Roemer Lecture on World Affairs on Oct. 11

GENESEO, N.Y.— Nicholas van de Walle, the current Director of the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies at Cornell University, will deliver the annual Kenneth Roemer Lecture on World Affairs from 4-5 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 11, in the College Union Ballroom at the State University of New York at Geneseo. His lecture, "Toward an African Renaissance? Prospects for a Troubled Continent," is free and open to the public. A reception will immediately follow in the Union Ballroom.

Professor van de Walle is the John S. Knight Professor of International Studies in the Department of Government, and associate dean for International Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences at Cornell University. He also is a nonresident fellow of the Center for Global Development in Washington, D.C.  Van de Walle's main research and teaching activities focus on African political and economic processes, theories and methods of comparative politics, international political economy, democratization, and the effectiveness of foreign aid. Among van de Walle's awards is the Luebbert Prize for the Best Book in Comparative Politics from the American Political Science Association for his book, African Economies and the Politics of Permanent Crisis, 1979-1999 (Cambridge University Press, 2001).

Van de Walle earned his bachelor's degree in International Relations from the University of Pennsylvania, a master's degree in International Relations from the London School of Economics, and a doctoral degree from the Woodrow Wilson School of International and Public Affairs at Princeton University. He also held teaching positions for 14 years at Michigan State University before joining Cornell in January 2004.

SUNY Geneseo's Kenneth Roemer Lecture on World Affairs is a memorial to Roemer's longstanding interest in global issues. The series was endowed by his brother, the late Spencer J. Roemer, emeritus director of admissions at Geneseo and member of the Geneseo Foundation Board of Directors. A generous benefactor of the college, Spencer Roemer died Feb. 14, 1997, at the age of 83.

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This release was written by Sara P. Wagner, a senior English and Communications major from Hilton, NY serving as a media relations intern in the Office of Communications and Publications.