Michel Camdessus, former managing director and chairman of the executive board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), will be the 2001 Henry E. and Nancy Horton Bartels World Affairs Fellow at Cornell University, April 9 and 10.

Camdessus will present the Bartels Fellowship Lecture Monday, April 9, at 8 p.m. in the Alice Statler Auditorium of Statler Hall on campus.

Titled "The IMF in World Affairs: Balancing Economic, Political and Social Objectives," the lecture is free and open to the public.

Camdessus, 67, became the seventh managing director and chairman of the executive board of the IMF on Jan. 16, 1987. On May 22, 1996, the executive board of the IMF unanimously selected Camdessus to serve a third five-year term as managing director, beginning Jan. 16, 1997. He retired from the IMF on Feb. 14, 2000.

He steered the IMF for nearly 13 years through a succession of economic crises. During his tenure at the fund, he earned praise, particularly from American officials, as an accomplished diplomat able to influence foreign leaders who were reluctant to enact economic changes.

Camdessus' visit to Cornell is hosted by the university's Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies. He will meet with students and faculty from government and economics classes and student groups.

Camdessus was educated at the University of Paris and earned postgraduate degrees in economics at the Institute of Political Studies of Paris and the National School of Administration.

Following his appointment as administrateur civil in the French Civil Service, Camdessus joined the treasury in the Ministry of Finance and Economic Policies in 1960. After serving as financial attaché to the French delegation at the European Economic Community in Brussels from 1966 to 1968, he returned to the treasury and went on to become assistant director in 1971, deputy director in 1974 and director in 1982. Camdessus was chairman of the Monetary Committee of the European Economic Community from 1982 to 1984. In August 1984, he was appointed deputy governor of the Bank of France and was appointed governor of the Bank of France in November 1984. He served in this post until his appointment as managing director of the IMF. Camdessus was named alternate governor of the IMF for France in 1983 and governor of the IMF in 1984.

When Camdessus arrived at the IMF, he faced four major issues critical to the organization: the uncertain state of international monetary cooperation among the large industrial countries; the stalled strategy for resolving the international debt crisis; the state of arrears to the IMF by several countries; and the deepening poverty in sub-Saharan Africa and other regions. The collapse of international communism and rapid globalization of finance in the 1990s presented even greater challenges.

An organization of 183 member countries, the IMF was established in 1946 to promote international monetary cooperation, exchange stability and orderly exchange arrangements; to foster economic growth and high levels of employment; and to provide temporary financial assistance to countries to help ease balance of payments adjustment.

Camdessus strengthened IMF operations by making them more open and by developing new procedures to give the IMF a more up-to-date picture of world economic developments. He also broadened the IMF's capacity to provide technical assistance and policy advice to governments and central banks around the world.

The Henry E. and Nancy Horton Bartels World Affairs Fellowship was established at Cornell by the Bartels in 1984 to foster a broadened world perspective among students by bringing distinguished international public figures to campus. Henry and Nancy Horton Bartels are both members of the Cornell Class of 1948.