About Us
The Alabama World Affairs Council (AWAC) is a nonprofit organization that sponsors lectures and programs on current and recent events of national and international interest. Through these programs, which take place in Montgomery, AWAC aims to promote public awareness and understanding of international affairs as they relate to U.S. interests in the context of political, economic, cultural, historical, and military issues. AWAC leadership states that the organization works to foster a democratic society through increasing individual knowledge of world affairs.
Officers
The Council is governed by a President, an Executive Director, an Executive Committee and a Board of Trustees.
Maj. Gen. Walter D. Givhan, USAF, Retd , PresidentMaj. Gen. Walter D. Givhan, USAF, Retired, President of ALWAC, is the Senior Vice Chancellor for Advancement for Troy University. A native of Safford, AL, Maj. Gen. Givhan graduated in History from the University of the South in Sewanee, TN, has several Master’s degrees including strategy and international relations, and was a Military Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He served as the USAF liaison officer to the French ground forces for operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, and he led the effort to rebuild the Afghan air force. He also has commanded a combat training squadron, an operations group, an air base wing, an air expeditionary wing, and the Air Force Institute of Technology. Maj. Gen. Givhan's staff assignments include the offices of the Secretary of the Air Force; Legislative Liaison; Chief, Combat Forces Division, Directorate of Programs; and Director, Secretary of the Air Force and Chief of Staff Executive Action Group, HQ USAF. He also served in the US Department of State's Bureau of Political-Military Affairs. He is a command pilot with more than 2,500 flying hours in aircraft including the F-15 and A-10. |
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Dr. Mark Conversino, Executive DirectorDr. Mark J. Conversino is the Chief Academic Officer of the Air University (2019-). He previously served as Dean of the Air War College (2008-16); and Deputy Commandant and Professor of Strategy and Security Studies at the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies (SAASS, 2016-19), Air University (AU), Maxwell Air Force Base (AFB), Alabama. As an award-winning professor, he is responsible for creating warrior-scholars of airpower. Dr. Conversino joined the faculty of the Air War College (AWC) as a civilian following his retirement from the Air Force and subsequently joined the faculty of SAASS in 2015. He specializes in military and airpower history and theory, Russian history and the politics of the former Soviet Union. He holds the PhD from Indiana University, Bloomington. His book, chronicling the challenges and costs of the US operation to fly bombing missions from Soviet Ukraine, is Fighting With the Soviets: The Failure of Operation FRANTIC, 1944-1945, Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1997. |
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Dr. Grant Hammond, Past President |
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Dr. Jeremy Lewis, Consultant, Past Vice PresidentJeremy Lewis earned a Bachelor's and Master's degree (on Open Scholarship) from Oxford University in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, then a Master's and a doctorate (on Fellowship) from the Johns Hopkins University in American Government and International Relations. Since then he has taught at Wellesley College, Colby College, the City University of New York, the University of Northern Iowa, and for two decades at Huntingdon College. He has received a national award for exemplary teaching. He also chairs a global research committee on administrative culture of the International Political Science Association (2016-2021, 2021-23), and is Vice President of the American Society of Access Professionals (2022-24). His many conference presentations, his articles and chapters, have covered public policy in the US and UK; bureaucratic reforms and reinvention; official information control and the global transparency movement; and digital era governance. He has been invited to give keynote speeches in Washington DC; Anchorage, Alaska; Bratislava, Slovakia; and St. Petersburg, Russian Federation. Since 2000 he has published notes of ALWAC speeches on Political-Science.org and AWAC.US, and has maintained our communications via our Facebook page and ALWAC.org. He is an occasional analyst of politics on television, notably on NBC nightly news and CTV News Canada. Although he moved in 2020 to northern Virginia, he continues to serve ALWAC as a consultant, hosting Zoom conferences in addition to the websites. |
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Board of Trustees
Dick Amberg
Don Armstrong Bowen Ballard Ed Bridges Thornton Clark Charles Cleveland Mark Conversino Eddie Crowell G. Doug Davis Richard Gill Walter Givhan Lawrence Grinter Bob Henry Mike Jenkins Sam Johnson |
Mike Luckett
Dan Morris Jim Nathan John Panettiere Steve Schloss Will Sellers Tom Vocino Alex Whaley Recent past members Jeremy Lewis (consulting, 2020-) Grant Hammond Joan Loeb Elizabeth Mazyck Nan Rosa |
Site managed by Troy University.  The Alabama World Affairs Council is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Tax ID #63-0957378 |
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