The South Carolina State University community will spend the month of November celebrating the cultural diversity of the campus and the 40-plus nations represented by its students, faculty and staff.

International Awareness Month will open with a Parade of Nations international flag procession at 11:45 a.m. Monday, Nov. 10. The parade, which will be led by the Marching 101 Band drumline, will start at the front of the campus, beside the Donma Administration Building, and end at the Student Center Plaza with a dance performance by student organization Ujimaa.

Keynote speaker for the event will be His Excellency Ombeni Sefue, ambassador of Tanzania to the U.S. He will deliver the keynote address at the opening ceremony for International Awareness Month at noon in the Bulldog Lounge in the Kirkland W. Green Student Center.

During the opening ceremony, an International Awareness Appreciation Award will be given to two faculty or staff members, and the International Student of the Year Award will be presented to an international student who is exemplary in academic performance and has demonstrated going beyond the call of duty in university and community service.

Other activities during the month include a foreign film festival and a forum.

The forum, sponsored by the international programs committee and the Department of Social Sciences, will feature a panel discussion titled "Meltdown and Bailout: The 2008 Financial Crisis in the U.S. and World Economies." It will be held at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, Nov. 18, in Belcher Hall, Room 436. Featured panelists will be Dr. Harry Miley, assistant professor of business; Dr. Benedict Jua, assistant professor of political science and interim chair of the Department of Social Sciences; and Lamin Drammeh, coordinator of the Textbook and Learning Materials Program.

Ambassador Sefue began his work as Tanzania's ambassador to the U.S. on June 15, 2007. Before that, he served as his country's high commissioner to Canada from October 2005 to June 2007.

A career diplomat, Sefue left the Foreign Service in 1993 to work for over two years as speechwriter and personal assistant to the then president of Tanzania, His Excellency Ali Hassan Mwinyi. Following general elections in 1995, the new president, His Excellency Benjamin William Mkapa, retained Sefue as his speechwriter and personal assistant with added responsibilities until 2005, when the president's term came to an end.

Born Aug. 26, 1954, in Same District, Tanzania, Sefue studied public policy and administration at what is today Mzumbe University and later earned a master's degree in the same field at the Institute of Social Studies at The Hague, The Netherlands, in 1981. He also holds a post-graduate diploma in international relations and diplomacy from the Tanzania-Mozambique Center for Foreign Relations in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. He has certificates in international negotiations and economic and social problems of developing countries.

He and his wife, Anita, have two children.

S.C. State's annual celebration of International Awareness Month is sponsored by the institution's international programs committee. For more information, contact Dr. Learie Luke at 803-536-8683 or lluke@scsu.edu.

Special to The T&D

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