ITHACA, N.Y. -- Shibley Telhami, the Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland-College Park, will deliver the 2004 Spencer T. and Ann W. Olin Lecture Friday, April 2, at 7:30 p.m. in Call Alumni Auditorium of Kennedy Hall on the Cornell University campus.

The title of Telhami's talk, "The Stakes: America in Iraq and the Middle East," is similar to the title of his most-recent book, The Stakes: America in the Middle East (Westview Press, 2003).

The lecture is free and open to the public, but tickets are required. Tickets are available at the Willard Straight Hall ticket office; the Graduate School dean's office, 350 Caldwell Hall; and at The Bookery 2 in the DeWitt Mall, 215 N. Cayuga St., in downtown Ithaca.

"Professor Telhami is a prominent voice on foreign policy and Middle Eastern affairs, and will bring a unique perspective to the Cornell community," said Alison G. Power, dean of the Graduate School. "He has witnessed firsthand the aftermath of the war in Iraq and has personally helped shape U.S. policy on the Middle East. His topic couldn't be more timely or important in the ongoing debate over the reasons for war and the paths to peace."

Telhami has served as adviser to the United States Mission to the United Nations (1990-91), as adviser to former Congressman Lee Hamilton and as a member of the U.S. delegation to the Trilateral U.S.-Israeli-Palestinian Anti-Incitement Committee, which was mandated by the Wye River memorandum. Telhami has served on the U.S. Advisory Group on Public Diplomacy for the Arab and Muslim World, which was appointed by the Department of State at the request of Congress, and he co-drafted the report of their findings, "Changing Minds, Winning Peace." He also co-drafted several Council on Foreign Relations reports on U.S. public diplomacy, on the Arab-Israeli peace process and on Persian Gulf security. Telhami is a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and has taught at several universities, including Cornell, Princeton, Columbia and the University of California-Berkeley, where he received his doctorate in political science. His book The Stakes: America and the Middle East was selected by Foreign Affairs magazine as one of the top five books on the Middle East in 2003. Telhami's other publications include Power and Leadership in International Bargaining: The Path to the Camp David Accords (Columbia University Press, 1990), International Organizations and Ethnic Conflict , edited with Milton Esman (Cornell University Press, 1995), as well as numerous articles. He has contributed to The Washington Post , the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times and regularly appears on national and international radio and television.

For more information about the Olin lecture, contact Maggie Peck in the Cornell Graduate School Office at (607) 255-5417 or e-mail mmp27@cornell.edu .