Alumnus Wins Presidential Meritorious Award

November 10, 2009

Thomas Hull '68

The U.S. Department of State has announced that Dickinson College graduate Thomas Hull has received a Presidential Meritorious Service Award for his accomplishments as U.S. ambassador to Sierra Leone from 2004 to 2007.

This is Hull’s second Presidential Meritorious Service Award. He received his first Presidential Meritorious Service Award in 1993 for his work in transforming communist Czechoslovakia into the democratic Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Hull, the Warburg Chair in International Relations at Simmons College, graduated from Dickinson College in 1968 with a bachelor’s degree in history and began his involvement in Africa after working as a Peace Corps teacher in Sierra Leone.

The Presidential Meritorious Service Award is given to past and present Department of State officials for leadership and advancement of U.S. foreign policy. While serving as ambassador to Sierra Leone, Hull worked to ensure that the presidential election was free and fair, and helped to resume visa services at the embassy that had been terminated during the country's civil war. Hull also advocated for the return of the Peace Corps to Sierra Leone, led the completion of a new $65 million U.S. embassy in Freetown, and directed creative fundraising for the rehabilitation of the John F. Kennedy Building at the University of Sierra Leone.

Beginning in 1989, Hull was a diplomat in Czechoslovakia, where he established Fulbright Commissions in the Czech and Slovak republics for educational exchange with the United States.

Hull returned to Dickinson last month to give a presentation on the challenge of waging peace amidst conflict in Africa. He returned as a Metzger-Conway fellow, the program, established at Dickinson in 1982, brings distinguished graduates back to Dickinson for a short residency.

At Simmons College, Hull teaches courses on U.N. peace operations and African politics. His diplomatic career, which ended in 2007, included 22 years in Africa. In Washington, he served as director of African Affairs at the U.S. Information Agency before its merger with the Department of State.