Dr. Thomas Nowotny of Vienna, Austria, who is retired from a career as a diplomat and educator, will present “Global Trends and the Corresponding Need for Moral Leadership in Global Governance” on Thursday, April 28, at 11 a.m. at Hope College in room 239 of the Martha Miller Center for Global Communication.
The public is invited. Admission is free.
Nowotny, who is a 1959 Hope graduate, will be in West Michigan in conjunction with receiving a Distinguished Alumni Award from the college on Saturday, April 30, during the college’s annual Alumni Weekend.
Nowotny was a career Austrian diplomat whose service included heading the Foreign Ministry’s department for political planning (“Grundsatzabteilung”) for 10 years between 1983 and 1993. Prior to that, he had been Austrian Consul General in New York and Counselor at the Austrian Embassy in Cairo.
In addition, for five years, from 1970 to 1975, he was private secretary to Austrian Chancellor Bruno Kreisky; from 1997 to 2000 he was senior political counselor to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development; and from 1993 to 1996 he was consultant to the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development). In the time between 2000 and 2009, he served as consultant to the major Austrian promotional and development bank AWS (at last in a posting in Washington, D.C., with emphasis on cooperation with the Washington-based IFIs).
During and following his diplomatic career, Nowotny taught political science for several years at the University of Vienna, from which he received an “excellence in teaching” award. Although he retired from teaching in 2013, he continues to tutor students writing their master’s theses under his supervision.
He is author of numerous articles and of several books. His last major books are “Strawberries in Winter: On Global Trends and Global Governance” and “Diplomacy and Global Governance: The Diplomatic Service in an Age of World-wide Interdependence.”
Nowotny is also currently president of the Austrian Chapter of the Society for International Development, and a member of the International Studies Association and the Austrian Political Science Association. His professional activities have also included being a member of the scientific advisory board of the Institute for International Economic Studies (WIIW); a Board that supports the work of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis – IIASA; and of the scientific advisory board of Vienna-based Austrian Institute for International Studies (ÖIIP); and a fellow of the Aspen Institute, of the Rockefeller Bellagio Center and of the Salzburg Seminar on Global Studies.
He attended Hope through a Fulbright award, graduating with a major in American studies. He subsequently completed a doctorate in law in 1960 in addition to conducting post-graduate studies in Paris, France.
His wife, Eva, is a former Austrian ambassador to the United States who in retirement serves as chairperson of the Board of Trustees of the University of Vienna and as president of the Austrian UNESCO Commission. Their involvement with Hope through the years has ranged from delivering lectures at the college, to participating in alumni events, to hosting an alumni gathering at their home in Vienna. They have a daughter and two grandchildren.
The Martha Miller Center for Global Communication is located at 257 Columbia Ave., at the corner of Columbia Avenue and 10th Street.