Seàn-Patrick Lovett has shared his media and communications expertise with college students and professionals around the world. On March 20-21, he will be in Blacksburg to give a public lecture and participate in small-group discussions.

On March 20, he will meet with students and staff during the day before giving a talk at 7 p.m. at the Graduate Life Center auditorium. The talk, which addresses motivation and provocation, is titled “If not now, when? If not you, who?” 

The following day, Lovett will meet with a number of campus and community-based organizations to discuss the importance of dialogue in today’s polarized society and to explore the ways such engagement can help the Virginia Tech community live its Ut Prosimmotto and be a force for positive change in society.

Lovett's visit is sponsored by the Pamplin College of Business and University Libraries. 

Lovett describes himself as Irish by origin, African by birth, and Italian by adoption. He currently heads the Dicastery for Communication of the Holy See, which has authority over all communication offices of the Holy See and the Vatican City State.

He previously headed the English Department of Vatican Radio. Over the past 40 years, Lovett has served five popes. Pope Benedict XVI awarded him a Papal Knighthood in 2007.

For more than 30 years, Lovett has also served as a professor of media and management at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, where he teaches courses in communications and media to students from U.S. universities that include Michigan State University, University of Minnesota, and the University of Southern California. The University of Dayton named him Communicator of the Year in 2013. 

As vice president of the Centre for Research and Education in Communication, based in Lyon, France, Lovett provides media workshops and communications training throughout the world, and especially in developing countries.

Most recently, Lovett has provided these services in Tanzania, Ethiopia, Liberia, Zambia, Mauritius, Burkina Faso, South Africa, and the Philippines. The center also offers master classes at the University of Lviv in the Ukraine.

Lovett holds a doctorate in communication from American University in Rome. In the early 1980s, he was a television news war correspondent, primarily in the Middle East. In 1993, he coauthored the best-selling book, “The Best Gift is Love: Meditations by Mother Teresa.”

Written by Barbara Micale