"No Man Is An Island: Lessons Learned as a Legislator and Diplomat"
The College of Family, Home, and Social Sciences at Brigham Young University is pleased to recognize Ambassador Jeffry Flake (BA ’86, MA ’87) as the 2025 Honored Alumni speaker and recipient of an Alumni Achievement Award. As part of homecoming activities during the university’s 150th year, Flake will present a lecture for students titled “No Man is an Island: Lessons Learned as a Legislator and Diplomat.”
Date: Thursday, October 16
Time: 11 a.m.
Place: Kimball Tower Auditorium (Room 250) on BYU campus
“Ambassador Flake is an excellent example of the positive influence BYU alumni can have around the world,” says Laura Padilla-Walker, dean of the College of Family, Home, and Social Sciences. “He has also served his alma mater in countless ways, including on the college’s National Advisory Council and with students in BYU’s Washington Seminar while they completed internships in the nation’s capital. We’re grateful for how he has lit the way for students seeking to align their professional skills and spiritual goals.”
Flake finished his master's degree in political science while himself an intern on Capitol Hill and participant in the Washington Seminar. Two years later, he put his undergraduate degree in international relations to good use in the southern African country of Namibia, where he directed a foundation giving assistance to that country’s independence process. He returned to the United States in the early 1990s as executive director of Arizona’s Goldwater Institute.
As a politician, Flake was known for his bipartisan efforts. In 2000, he ran for Congress and won a seat representing Arizona’s sixth congressional district and served on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. In 2012, he won a Senate seat and joined the Committee on Foreign Relations and chaired the Subcommittee on Africa.
“Jeff is an example of how to be in politics and be a peacemaker,” says Jay Goodliffe, chair of the Political Science Department at BYU. “His bipartisan work is an example of how we can make a difference by reaching out to people of another party, nationality, or ideology in an earnest effort to make the world a better place.”
After retiring from the Senate, Flake was nominated to be U.S. Ambassador to Türkiye, where, among other duties, he helped secure Sweden’s accession to NATO. In appreciation, he was awarded Knighthood by the Government of Sweden.
Flake served as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in South Africa and Zimbabwe in the early 1980s—a period of social unrest due to apartheid. Ambassador Flake and his wife, Cheryl, are the parents of five grown children. They divide their time between Arizona, where he directs Arizona State University’s Institute of Politics, and Utah, where he is Chairman of World Trade Center Utah.
The Alumni Achievement Award at Brigham Young University recognizes alumni for contributions to their field, communities, and the university. Past recipients from the College of Family, Home, and Social Sciences with careers in politics include Olene Walker, Utah’s first female governor, Michelle Kaufusi, Provo’s first female mayor, Larry Eastland who served for U.S. presidents, and Senator Orrin Hatch from Utah.