State Department official to discuss foreign policy challenges

Please note: This lecture has been postponed indefinitely.

David McKean, director of policy planning for the U.S. Department of State, will visit Salve Regina next week for a candid conversation about the world and the policy options facing the United States.

Sponsored by the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy, “A Conversation with David McKean” will be held at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 6 in the Bazarsky Lecture Hall. To RSVP, visit pell-davidmckean.eventbrite.com.

The foreign policy challenges facing the United States today are immense. Extremism in the Middle East, a refugee crisis engulfing Europe, Russian aggression in Ukraine and an island-building campaign in the South China Sea are just a few of the issues competing for the attention of policy makers. As director of policy planning, McKean is charged with seeing beyond the headlines, making sense of events and devising strategy for this world.

McKean joined the State Department in 2012 as a senior adviser to Hillary Clinton for the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review. He has served as a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, CEO of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, staff director for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and chief of staff in Sen. John Kerry’s personal office.

McKean is the author of three books on American political history: “Friends in High Places,” “Tommy the Cork” and “The Great Decision.” He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College in 1980 and holds graduate degrees from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and Duke Law School.

Please note: This event is closed to press.