Latin America Expert To Speak At Jackson Lecture April 2

Paul Bell, a Baylor alumnus and regional director for the regional office for Latin America and the Caribbean at the Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance, will deliver the annual Laura Blanche Jackson Lecture in World Issues at 7 p.m. Monday, April 2, in the Jones Theater at the Hooper-Schaefer Fine Arts Center. The lecture is sponsored by Baylor University's department of political science and is free and open to the public.
Bell, who was born in Texas but grew up in Panama, received his bachelor's degree from Baylor and his master of theology degree from Southwestern Seminary. Since 1953, he has spent his entire career living in or working with Latin America and the Caribbean countries.
After serving a missionary in Guatemala and Colombia, President John Kennedy named Bell the Peace Corps area director for Central America and the Caribbean. He subsequently served as Peace Corps country director for Chile for three years and in Colombia for two years.
When the Interamerican Foundation was established in 1971, Bell was selected as vice president for operations. In 1977 he returned to the Peace Corps to serve as regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean. In 1980, he was appointed by President Jimmy Carter as the deputy director of the state department's Cuban-Haitian refugee program. Since 1984, he has held his current position for the Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance, in which he has managed the U.S. government's disaster relief effort in more than 125 disasters in Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa and Asia.
The Laura Blanche Jackson Lectureship in World Issues was created in 1994 as a memorial to Laura Blanche Jackson, who graduated from Baylor in 1985 with a degree in political science and became the director of marketing for the World Affairs Council of San Antonio. After Jackson's death from cancer in 1992, her family created the lectureship to examine various world issues as a way to honor her passion for world affairs.
For more information, call the department of political science at 710-3161.