August 21, 2006
Director of Media Relations
413/542-8417
AMHERST, Mass.—Kenneth Bacon, Amherst College Class of ’66 and president of Refugees International, will speak to the incoming Class of 2010 at 6 p.m. on Monday, Aug. 28, in Johnson Chapel at Amherst College. Bacon will address issues of genocide in Darfur. The first annual Benjamin DeMott Lecture at Amherst College, his talk is directed toward first-year students at Amherst, and will relate to their summer reading. As space permits, the DeMott Lecture is free and open to the public.
In 2001, Bacon became the president of Refugees International, a 25-year-old organization that generates lifesaving humanitarian assistance and protection for displaced people, and works to end the conditions that create displacement. He previously served in the Clinton administration as the assistant secretary of defense for public affairs and Pentagon spokesman, as a reporter and editorial columnist at The Wall Street Journal, in the United States Army Reserve during the Vietnam War and as a legislative assistant to Senator Thomas J. McIntyre (R.-N.H.) He is a member of Population Action International, the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
After receiving a B.A. with honors in English from Amherst, Bacon earned M.B.A. and M.A. degrees in journalism from Columbia University. He has published articles and op-ed pieces on peacekeeping, displacement and other topics in The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, Newsday, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, World Policy Journal and The Guardian.
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