The Stephen Edward Scarff Memorial Visiting Professor in 1997-98 was David H. Swartz, who served as the first United States ambassador to the new country of Belarus from 1992-94. While at Lawrence he taught courses in American Diplomacy, Russian Foreign Policy, and American Democracy.
A graduate of Southwestern College, Swartz earned a master's degree in Soviet and East European area studies from Florida State University. As a career foreign-service officer beginning in 1967, he held embassy and consular posts in Rotterdam, London, Moscow, Kiev, Zurich, Calgary, and Warsaw and also served the Department of State as officer-in-charge of the East-West Economic Relations Unit, staff director of the Nuclear Risk Reduction Center, senior inspector in the Office of the Inspector General, and dean of the School of Language Studies. Upon leaving the diplomatic service he became president of the European Humanities Foundation, Inc., a group he founded to support a private university in Minsk, Belarus.
In 2005, he returned to Lawrence as a guest speaker in the “U.S. and European Security: Challenges and Choices” lecture series sponsored by the Mojmir Povolny Lectureship in International Studies.