Madeleine Albright, the first female U.S. secretary of state, is heading to Fulton.
Albright will deliver the 59th John Findley Green Foundation Lecture on Sept. 19 at Westminster College.
"This is a tremendous honor to welcome a world leader of Dr. Albright's stature to Westminster," Westminster College President Fletcher Lamkin said in a news release. "I have asked that her lecture further articulate her ideas about democracy's future prospects, and how humanity might once again break down the walls that divide us, and join together, in a spirit of hope, to confront the challenges that lie ahead."
President Bill Clinton nominated Albright as the 64th secretary of state in 1997. Today, she is chair of Albright Stonebridge Group, a global strategy firm, and chair of Albright Capital Management LLC, an investment advisory firm focused on emerging markets. In addition, she is a professor in the practice of diplomacy at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service.
Albright also chairs the National Democratic Institute, serves as the president of the Truman Scholarship Foundation and is a member of the U.S. Defense Department's Defense Policy Board.
Some of the other prestigious Green Foundation lecturers in Westminster College's history include U.S. presidents Harry S. Truman, Gerald Ford and George H. W. Bush; British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher; U.S.S.R. President Mikhail Gorbachev; Poland President Lech Walesa; and U.S. Secretary of State and Treasury James A. Baker.
Albright's lecture will be the cornerstone of Westminster's 12th annual Hancock Symposium, two days of lectures, panel discussions and presentations on a subject of global importance.
This year's Hancock Symposium takes its inspiration from "Breakthrough," a sculpture created by internationally acclaimed artist and Churchill's granddaughter Edwina Sandys from eight contiguous sections of the original Berlin Wall. Albright's lecture will be given in the auditorium adjacent to where the "Breakthrough" sculpture stands on the Westminster College campus.
This Hancock Symposium theme will focus on human "breakthroughs" in every aspect of life and honor the 30-year anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Ticketing information for Albright's lecture will be announced at a future date.