For only the second time, a seated ambassador to the United States will be a guest at the University of Kansas’ Dole Institute of Politics.
Jean-Arthur Régibeau, the ambassador of Belgium to the United States, will deliver the annual Dole Institute Lecture at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, May 5 — virtually via the Dole Institute’s YouTube channel due to the COVID-19 pandemic — the organization announced Monday.
“As the world begins to emerge from the COVID pandemic, (Ambassador Régibeau) will bring a unique perspective on what lies ahead for U.S. and European relations,” Dole Institute Director Bill Lacy said in a press release.
Régibeau, who has worked in the upper echelons of Belgium’s government since joining the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1998, assumed his current role on Sept. 17, 2020 in the midst of global unrest — namely the U.S. presidential election and the worldwide effort to fight the pandemic. His address, the Dole Institute said, will focus on those changes from the perspective of Belgium and the European Union, as well as what role the U.S. will play on the world’s stage moving forward.
The Dole Institute Lecture is held each spring and commemorates April 14, 1945, when former Kansas Senator Bob Dole was critically wounded while serving in Italy during World War II.
Previous honorees have included HP Chief Executive Carly Fiorina, former U.S. Rep. Lynn Jenkins, former U.S. Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Bob Woodward, news anchor Tom Brokaw and former President Bill Clinton.
