His Excellency Roman Kirn, Slovenian Ambassador to the U.S. and Mexico, will visit the Grinnell College campus on Thurs., Oct. 13. The Ambassador will give a public lecture at 12:15 p.m. on “Slovenia, The European Union and the Global Financial Crisis,” followed by question-and-answer session, in Room 101 of the Joe Rosenfield ’25 Center.
The Ambassador’s visit to Grinnell comes during World Food Prize Week, when he will be a guest of Iowa Senator Tom Harkin. Kirn was appointed Ambassador to the U.S. in 2009 and to Mexico this year. He began his diplomatic career at the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Yugoslavia in 1977. After Slovenia gained independence in 1991, he was appointed director of multilateral relations and later served as minister counsellor at the embassy in Prague and as a member of U.N. and NATO delegations. While Ambassador to the U.N. from 2002-2006, he also served as vice-chair of the UNICEF executive board, vice-president of the U.N. General Assembly, and was in charge of transatlantic relations and preparations for the E.U.-U.S. Summit held in Slovenia in 2008.
Ambassador Kirn’s visit to Grinnell is sponsored by the college’s Rosenfield Program in Public Affairs; for additional information, contact Sarah Purcell, director of the Rosenfield Program, purcelsj@grinnell.edu, 641-269-3091. Members of the media who wish to cover the Grinnell visit should contact Cindy Deppe, deppec@grinnell.edu, 641-269-4834; 641-990-7745 for details.
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