MILWAUKEE — Diane Foley, president and founder of the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation, visited Marquette University from Nov. 5-9 as the featured speaker for the Center for Peacemaking’s Distinguished Peacemaker series.
On campus, Diane and Tom Durkin, Program Director for the Legacy Foundation and Research and Grant Writer for the Center for Peacemaking, began the week with a Q&A session after a screening of “Jim: The James Foley Story.”
During the week, Diane had lunch with the two James Foley Scholars, Jake Zelinski (’19) and
Sarah Lipo (’21), visited students in multiple classes, including Introduction to Peace Studies,
World Conflict & Security, and the Capstone in Journalism course and discussed journalism safety with several members of the journalism faculty.
The highlight of the week was Diane’s keynote address before a standing-room only crowd. Diane noted the important role Marquette played in helping Jim develop his moral courage. She expressed hope for the future while also stressing the need for journalists and others to take the necessary precautions in an increasingly dangerous world.
Diane emphasized the foundation’s mission to advocate for the safe return of all Americans detained abroad, to protect independent conflict journalists and to educate regarding threats to freedom.
“We seek to inspire moral courage in our government, to dare to stand up for the American who might be in that situation, in journalism, so that journalism will persevere … in finding out the truth about issues and inequities and just in everyday living,” Diane said in an interview with Natallie St. Onge of the Marquette Wire.
“So that people can dare to do right with their lives, to do the right thing in the choices they make. That’s where we try to encapsulate that Jimmy has challenged me with, with us with.”
Diane will be visiting the University of Notre Dame in the Spring semester. To find out more about having Diane visit your campus, please contact Tom Durkin at tom.durkin@jamesfoleyfoundation.org.
