For Immediate Release May 18, 2001Contact: Alisa Giardinelli 610.690.5717[email protected]www.swarthmore.edu/Home/News
Swarthmore College to Hold 129th Commencement on June 4
Swarthmore College President Alfred H. Bloom will award honorary degrees to noted bioethicist and civil rights advocate Adrienne Asch of the Class of 1969, longtime public servant, accomplished author, and decorated veteran Ken Hechler of the Class of 1935, and critically acclaimed author and physician Abraham Verghese at the College's 129th commencement on Monday, June 4. About 335 seniors are expected to graduate at the ceremony, to be held at 10 a.m. in the Scott Outdoor Auditorium.
T. Kaori Kitao, William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of Art History, will address the graduating class at baccalaureate services on June 3. The senior class speaker on June 4, as voted his by classmates, is Evan D. Gregory, a double major in music and computer science from Radford, Va.
Adrienne Asch
Asch, a philosophy major, graduated from Swarthmore in 1969. She earned an M.S. in social work, community organization, and planning in 1973 and a Ph.D. in social psychology in 1992, both from Columbia University.
As a scholar, psychotherapist, and proponent of equal opportunity and human rights, Asch is known for her studies of social and ethical issues such as selective abortion, genetics, discrimination, feminism, and disability rights. Since 1994, Asch has been the Henry R. Luce Professor of Biology, Ethics, and the Politics of Human Reproduction at Wellesley College, where she teaches courses that examine the ethical questions posed by biotechnology and social policy for the reproductive health and social well-being of women and families around the world. She has also held teaching positions at Barnard College, Columbia University, Boston University, and the City College of New York.
In addition to her extensive writing and teaching, Asch serves on numerous boards and research groups, such as the Boston Women's Health Book Collective, the Council for Responsible Genetics, and the Society for Disability Studies. Asch maintained a private psychotherapy practice from 1979 to 1992. In 1993 she served on the Clinton Health Reform Task Force and was appointed to the national Commission on Childhood Disability in 1995.
Ken Hechler
Hechler graduated from Swarthmore with a B.A. in political science in 1935. He earned an M.A. in political science a year later and a Ph.D. in government and American history in 1940, both from Columbia University.
After teaching at Barnard College and Columbia, Hechler enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1942 and the next year received a commission as a second lieutenant. Assigned to the European theater as a combat historian, Hechler interrogated Hermann Goering and other top Nazi military leaders shortly after their capture. For this work, he was promoted to major and awarded the Bronze Star and five battle stars. After the war, he returned to teaching, this time at Princeton University, until joining the White House staff and serving under President Harry S. Truman as a research director and special assistant.
Hechler continued his career as a public servant by representing the state of West Virginia as a congressman in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1959 to 1977. He also served as West Virginia's Secretary of State from 1985 to 2001. In both roles, he led the fight for fair elections, miner safety, environmental protection and, most recently, campaign finance reform. Hechler was the only member of Congress to meet with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., at Selma, Ala. Last year he walked 530 miles with Doris Haddock ("Granny D"), the 90-year-old great-grandmother who walked from California to the nation's capital on behalf of campaign finance reform.
In addition to Barnard and Princeton, Hechler has held teaching positions at Marshall University, the University of Charleston, and most recently at West Virginia State College. As an author, he has written books including Insurgency: Personalities and Politics of the Taft Era (1940), West Virginia Memories of President Kennedy (1965), Working with Truman (1982), The Endless Space Frontier (1982), and The Bridge at Remagen (1957), which was made into a motion picture in 1969.
Abraham Verghese
Raised in Ethiopia by parents who left southern India for teaching opportunities in Addis Ababa, Verghese had his medical studies interrupted by war and political turmoil. After working as an orderly in various American hospitals and nursing homes, he completed his medical education at Madras University in India and received his degree in 1979. After an internship in India and a residency program at East Tennessee State University, he completed a two-year fellowship in infectious diseases at Boston University in 1985. Since 2000, Verghese has held the position of Grover E. Murray Distinguished Professor of Internal Medicine at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in El Paso.
In 1991, Verghese received a master of fine arts in writing through the Writer's Workshop at the University of Iowa. His published work includes The Tennis Partner: A Doctor's Story of Friendship and Loss (1998) and My Own Country: A Doctor's Story of a Town and Its People in the Age of AIDS (1995), for which he was named a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1994.
Swarthmore College
Located near Philadelphia, Swarthmore is a highly selective liberal arts college with an enrollment of 1,450. Swarthmore is consistently ranked among the top liberal arts colleges in the country by U.S. News & World Report.
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