Doreen Kays to Speak on "Lebanon: Why Now? What Now?" August 23
The UPEI Distinguished Visitor Speaker Series continues Wednesday, August 23 with former foreign correspondent, Doreen Kays. She will be speaking at 3:00 p.m. in the K C Irving Chemistry Centre Lecture Theatre. Her presentation is entitled "Lebanon: Why Now? What Now?"
Kays has achieved worldwide acclaim in broadcast journalism. After receiving her diploma in journalism at the University of King's College in 1963, she began her journalism career as a reporter and later editor with the Halifax Chronicle-Herald. In 1966 she became the first female television reporter at CBC television news in Montreal covering such events as the Quebec separatist movement crisis, the Montreal World Fair, and the Montreal Olympics.
As a former ABC News Cairo bureau chief and correspondent, Kays covered the Middle East extensively. In addition to witnessing first hand, the killing of Anwar Sadat, she reported on other major historical events, including the Camp David peace accords and the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty; the Iran hostage crisis in Tehran and release of the American diplomat hostages in Algiers; the exile of the Shah of Iran and the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. Kays also covered Europe for ABC News as a Paris-based correspondent for "World News Tonight", "Nightline", and "Good Morning America."
She later moved on to anchor and report for the Boston-based Christian Science Monitor's nightly TV program "World Monitor" for which she covered the Gulf War of 1991 and spent time reporting from Israel, Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza.
Based on her account of the late Anwar Sadat, Egypt, and the media, Kays wrote the internationally acclaimed Frogs and Scorpions in 1984. This caught the attention of literary critics who like Milton Viorst of the New Yorker wrote " Doreen Kays has done the impossible and#150; written a book about the Middle East that is intelligent, fair, thoughtfuland#133;and funny."
Kays is also the winner of many awards including the Lowell Thomas Award from the Overseas Press Club of America for the best radio interpretation of foreign affairs for her perspective on "Sadat: The aftermath." She also received and#145;Woman of the Year' from the Charlottetown branch of the Zonta Club International in 1986. She holds an honorary degree from UPEI (1987) and King's College(1990).
The Distinguished Speaker Visitor Speaker Series takes place Wednesdays at 3 pm, with historic campus tours at 4 pm, throughout the summer and early fall. Admission is free. In addition to Wednesday lectures, presentations are being scheduled at other times based on the availability of speakers. For more information contact Julie Mutch at 894-2834 or visit www.upei.ca/summer.
