Baker Institute Officials Plan Annual Conference

Contact: Michael Cinelli
Phone: (713) 831-4794

Baker Institute Officials Plan Annual Conference

The James A. Baker III Institute for Public
Policy intends to hold its inaugural conference in the fall of 1995
and is considering the important issues of the causes and
consequences of the end of the Cold War as its major focus,
institute director Edward P. Djerejian announced today.

The conference would deal with the political, economic, social,
cultural, scientific and military implications of the end of the
Cold War as they relate to U.S. interests and policy formulation in
the years ahead.

"Secretary Baker, who played a key role during this historic
period of transition, will take a leading role in the conference,"
Djerejian said.

The Baker Institute director indicated that other key foreign
and American statesmen and policy makers involved in the decision-making process during the period at the end of the Cold War would be
invited to participate in such a conference along with leading
scholars from Rice University and other institutions.

The institute intends to commission monographs from Rice faculty
analyzing specific issues and subjects dealing with the conference’s
main theme, Djerejian said.

The announcement of the planned inaugural conference came during
a meeting of the Baker Institute’s Leadership Committee, during
which Djerejian outlined several other initiatives under
consideration, including:

* a follow-on conference to the Baker Institute’s inaugural
conference hosted by Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of
Public and International Affairs which would take place in the
spring of 1996 as part of Princeton University’s 250th anniversary;

* a seminar at Rice, now in the exploratory stage, hosted by the
Baker Institute and the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton in
early 1995, focusing on U.S.-Mexican relations and hemispheric trade
in the wake of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA); and

* a cooperative effort between the Baker Institute and the
Council on Foreign Relations to identify the major foreign policy
interests and threats the United States will face in the future.

Rice University is an independent, coeducational, nonsectarian
private university dedicated to undergraduate teaching and graduate
studies, research and professional training in selected disciplines.
It has an undergraduate student population of 2,572, a graduate and
professional student population of 1,375 and a full-time faculty of
448

###