Newswise — United States Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the Reverend Peter J. Gomes and poet, publisher and author Chase Twichell will be awarded honorary degrees by St. Lawrence University at its Commencement, on Sunday, May 16 at 10 a.m. All three will offer remarks at the ceremony.
Sotomayor is the first Latina to sit on the United States Supreme Court. She was a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit when President Barack Obama nominated her to replace retired Justice David Souter on the U.S. Supreme Court in 2009. Of Puerto Rican descent, she was raised in the Bronx, New York by her widowed mother, graduated with honors from Princeton University (1976) and earned her law degree from Yale University (1979). Sotomayor then served as an assistant district attorney in the New York County District Attorney's Office from 1979 until 1984. That year she went into private practice as a litigator, continuing until 1991, when she was nominated to the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, by President George H.W. Bush. She was confirmed in 1992. President William J. Clinton nominated her for the U.S. Court of Appeals in June of 1997; she was confirmed in October, 1998. She was confirmed as an Associate Justice of Supreme Court in August of 2009.
Gomes has served since 1970 in The Memorial Church, Harvard University, and since 1974, he has been the Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church. Named Clergy of the Year in 1998 by Religion in American Life, Gomes is author of The Good Book: Reading the Bible with Mind and Heart; Sermons: Biblical Wisdom for Daily Living; The Backward Glance and the Forward Look; Gomes's Book of Good Graces: A Collection of Graces and Blessings; Strength for the Journey: Biblical Wisdom for Daily Living; and The Good Life: Truths That Last in Times of Need.
Twichell is a prolific author, whose books include Dog Language (2005), The Snow Watcher (1998), The Ghost of Eden (1995), Perdido (1991), The Odds (1986) and Northern Spy (1981), plus a translation (with Tony K. Stewart) of Rabindranath Tagore's Lover of God (2003), and, with Robin Behn, The Practice of Poetry: Writing Exercises From Poets Who Teach (1992). In addition to her work as a poet, Twichell is also well known as the founder and editor of Ausable Press, a publishing house that for 10 years published some of the best new poetry in America in beautifully designed editions; in 2009, it merged with Copper Canyon Press.
St. Lawrence University's Commencement is held on Creasy Commencement Commons, or in Appleton Arena, in case of bad weather.
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