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SARASOTA, FL, (June 16, 2005) – The Yale Club of the Suncoast elected Dr. Peter French, associate vice president and dean of Academic Affairs at the University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee, president for the 2005-2006 year.

The Yale Club of the Suncoast serves Yale in Florida for Manatee, Sarasota, Hardee, DeSoto and Charlotte counties. Founded half a century ago, the Club currently has a membership of 150 in the area and will celebrate its fiftieth anniversary in 2006. Meeting monthly from October to May, members hear presentations by Yale faculty and other major speakers. The Club also assists local high school students in the application process to Yale and provides support to the Association of Yale Alumni (AYA).

During a career in higher education that spans more than 35 years, French has been a teaching faculty member; a vice-president for academic affairs twice; a provost; a college trustee; and a college president. He earned a B.A. in History from Moravian College, an M.A. in International Relations from Yale University, and a Ph.D. in International Relations from Yale University.

In addition to his experience in higher education, French has interest in international relations with a particular focus on Africa. Over a twenty-year period he made sixteen field trips to east Africa where he completed his doctoral dissertation research on Kenyan politics. He was a civil servant in the East African Common Services Organization and developed studies programs for American students in the form of a Nairobi Semester program headquartered at St. Lawrence University. French was appointed by the President Moi of Kenya to work with a group of senior Kenyan academics to make recommendations on the second university for the nation, Moi University, which opened in 1985.

French also was instrumental in developing an exchange program between Mercy College in New York and the Universitatis Internationalis Collucio Salutati in Pescia, Italy. For his efforts he received the Galileo Medal from the faculty of jurisprudence at the University of Pisa, the highest award the University may bestow without a special act of the Italian National Assembly.

French is currently writing a book on race relations and completing a biography of an African politician that describes the transition of Kenya from a colony to independence in the 1960s and 70s.

The Crosley Campus Center, scheduled to open in fall 2006, will be a 100,000-square-foot facility with 24 classrooms; a 190-seat lecture/exhibition hall; seminar and video-conferencing rooms; computer labs; a daycare center; student gathering places; faculty and staff offices; a technology and learning center; dining facilities; and training facilities for the School of Hotel and Restaurant Management. Once completed, the Center will offer some 800 courses annually in 39 academic programs.