Tenth Anniversary
Patricia Roberts Harris
Public Affairs Program
"The Life and Work of an Outstanding Howard Alumna, Educator,
and Public Servant"
The tenth anniversary of
Patricia Roberts Harris Public Affairs Program was observed March 12-14 with a series of
lectures and panel discussions involving former colleagues and associates paying tribute
and examining Harris’s legacy as servant, educator, and diplomat. Main speakers
included Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna E. Shalala, who delivered the
banquet address;
Dr. Michael R. Winston, President of the Alfred Harcourt Foundation, luncheon speaker; and
Ambassador Ruth A. Davis, Director of the Foreign Service Institute, Department of State,
who made the principal address on a special program in honor of women ambassadors heading
diplomatic missions in Washington, D.C.
The Harris Program grew out of a bequest to the university
from Mrs. Harris shortly before she died. The W. K. Kellog Foundation and the Henry M.
Jackson Foundation have made major contributions to sustain and enlarge the program.
Additional grants and individual contributions have come through other fund-raising
efforts. Harris Fellows, including a large number of former interns who returned to the
campus for the observance, attended and took part in the proceedings. University President
H. Patrick Swygert welcomed them, the ambassadors, and all other participants, including
distinguished government officials.
Joining with the Harris Program and the Bunche Center in
the tenth anniversary observance was the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures
which, through the initiative of Dr. Marilyn Sephocle, sponsored The Women Ambassadors
Program Conference on March 12. U.S. Ambassador Ruth A. Davis gave the main address in
honor of Ambassador Harris, the first African American woman to head a U.S. diplomatic
mission as ambassador, and women ambassadors currently resident in Washington.
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