embassy events 2007 

Ambassador Ashe Hosts Polish Alumni Association

 

10 April 2007 

Ambassador Ashe with honorary board members of the Polish Alumni Association and U.S. Embassy Warsaw Public Affairs Section staff

U.S. Ambassador to Poland, Victor Ashe, hosted the honorary board members of the Polish Alumni Association, a group of former participants in exchange programs sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, as well as the oldest and youngest exchange program alumni, to a breakfast at his Residence on April 5.  Attending the breakfast was Jerzy Baczynski, Editor in Chief of Polityka magazine; Marcin Bosacki, Foreign Editor of Gazeta Wyborcza daily newspaper; Andrzej Ceynowa, Rector of Gdansk University; Bogdan Klich, Member of the European Parliament; the oldest alumnus, Franciszek Lyra, the first Polish Fulbright Scholar in 1959 and retired professor of American Studies at Warsaw University; and the youngest alumnus, Milosz Zielinski, a high-school student who participated in the Benjamin Franklin Transatlantic Fellowship Program in 2006.

During the breakfast, the six guests who participated in various exchange programs from 1959 to 2006, shared their impressions of their exchange experiences and the significant impact these programs had on their professional lives. Mr. Baczynski stated that through his program, the multinational foreign journalist project in 1974, he rediscovered “what is and what was free press.” He believes that without this experience he would have never risen to the position he is in today and said “I still feel very grateful for this opportunity.”  Mr. Klich commented that during his exchange program he learned about U.S. civil society by being exposed to institutions such as the Brookings Institute. He decided it would be extremely important for the transition to democracy in Poland to establish a similar institution in Poland and this was the idea behind the development of the Institute of Strategic Studies in Krakow. Mr. Ceynowa described that as an American studies scholar, the cultural aspects of his exchange experience were initially extremely important, but 20 years later, he said, “I am using the knowledge that I gathered, without knowing I was gathering it, to be able to convince people to change the way the university is being run.” Mr. Baczynski stated, “I have been very often thinking about how some people whom I met on my exchange experience would react to the news, linkages, and gossip in my newspaper and what they would do. Now the circle of my life closes, because I will go to Washington, D.C., to be the newspaper’s foreign correspondent for a period of three years.”