Oct. 2, 1998
Contact: Shirley DeVault
(804) 924-7236

MEDIA ALERT

LECH WALESA APPEARANCE MOVED TO CHEMISTRY BUILDING AUDITORIUM


	Lech WalesaŐs Oct. 16 speech at the University of Virginia,
to inaugurate the Kosciuszko Chair in Polish Studies at the White
Burkett Miller Center for Public Affairs, has been moved from the Miller
Center to the larger Chemistry Building auditorium. The schedule remains
the same, with the event beginning at 5:30 p.m. Admission is free.
	Jerzy Kozminski, PolandŐs ambassador to the United States,
will accompany Walesa and present a forum on the future of the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization on Oct. 17 at 2 p.m. That event will be
held in the Miller CenterŐs J. Wilson Newman Pavilion and admission
is also free.
	Walesa, president of Poland from 1990 to 1995, was an
electrician in the Gdansk Lenin shipyards and was active in union
organizing for several years before capturing the worldŐs attention
as head of the 10 million-member Solidarity labor movement. Despite the
crackdown of martial law and his repeated imprisonment, Walesa's bold
efforts led to the end of Communist rule in Poland and Eastern Europe.  
	Walesa won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983. He now heads the Lech
Walesa Institute, which champions democracy and free market reform in
Eastern Europe and the developing world.
	The Kosciuszko Professorship in Polish Studies is named for
Tadeusz Kosciuszko (1746 1817), a Polish patriot and friend of the
American Revolution and Thomas Jefferson. The chair's primary supporter
is Blanka Rosenstiel, an Albemarle County resident and executive
secretary for the American Institute of Polish Culture. The Miller
Center will administer a permanent fund to create an endowed chair at
the center for an eminent scholar, for the purpose of assuring that
scholarship and teaching in the field of Poland's history, government,
and economy becomes emphasized among the University's offerings. The
chair is as yet unfilled.
	The Miller Center of Public Affairs, located at 2201 Old Ivy
Road in Charlottesville, is a nonpartisan research institute which
supports scholarship on the national and international policies of the
United States, past, present, and future. Miller Center research
emphasizes both the substance and process of national policymaking. 
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	NOTE: A press area will be reserved in the front of the
auditorium.

	Television reporters should contact our TV News Office at (804)
924-7550, or the Miller Center at the phone number listed above.