Newswise — Ursinus College commencement ceremonies will be Saturday, May 15, at 10 a.m. The commencement speaker will be Peter Gomes, the Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church, scholar at the Harvard Divnity School.
A baccalaureate service will be held at 5 p.m. Friday May 14 in Bomberger Hall. An address will be given by Rabbi David M. Ackerman, who has been the spiritual leader of Tiferet Bet Israel Synagogue in Blue Bell, Pa. since 1992. Both Ackerman and Gomes will receive honorary Doctor of Divinity degrees conferred by Ursinus College President John Strassburger. No tickets are required for the outdoor, tented ceremony.
Ursinus will graduate approximately 333 students earning bachelors of science and bachelors of arts degrees, as well as 40 students from the Center for Continuous Learning.
Rev. Gomes is a graduate of Bates College and Harvard Divinity School who holds honorary degrees from 14 colleges and universities including Wooster, Trinity, Knox, Colby, Duke, Hebrew Union College and the University of the South. He is an Honorary Fellow of Emmanuel College, the University of Cambridge, England and was named Clergy of the Year in 1998 by Religion in American Life. He is the author of best-selling books, The Good Book: Reading the Bible with Heart and Mind, and Biblical Wisdom for Daily Living. He serves as a trustee of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, The Roxbury Latin School, and of Bates College.
Rabbi Ackerman is a graduate of Princeton University and the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York. He has taught classes in ethics, Jewish law and Jewish Studies at the Women's League Institute, Hadassah retreats and communal leadership conferences. His articles have appeared in Conservative Judaism, Proceedings of the Eleventh World Congress of Jewish Studies and The Proceedings of the Rabbinical Assembly (1993). He serves on the Chancellor's Rabbinical Cabinet of Jewish Theological Seminary and is a member of the board of Camp Ramah in the Poconos and the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia.
Also receiving honorary degrees from Ursinus College will be:Joseph Cropsey, who holds an A.B., M.A., and Ph.D. in economics from Columbia University. He taught at City College of New York, New School for Social Research, Harvard University and University of Chicago where he is currently the Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus. He is the author of numerous articles and books. He will receive a Doctor of Humane Letters.
Bernard Poussot is executive vice president of Wyeth and President of Wyeth Pharmaceuticals. Prior to joining Wyeth in 1986, he was director of marketing worldwide for Seale in Chicago. He began his career with Laboratoires Merck Sharp & Dohme in Paris. He graduated from the Ecole Supérieure de Commerce in Paris and fulfilled his civil servant obligation as Secretary General to the Governor of Casablanca"Morocco in charge of Economic Affairs. He serves on the boards of the World Affairs Council, the Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine, the Opera Company of Philadelphia and the French American Chamber of Commerce. He will receive a Doctor of Science.
Salome Thomas-El was born and raised in Philadelphia and has been a teacher in the Philadelphia School District since 1987. He received international recognition as the innovative teacher who coached a team of students from the Vaux Middle School to become eight-time national chess champions. He studied in Cambridge and London, England and is currently a doctoral candidate at Lehigh University. He received the "Making a Difference" Award from KYW-CBS Television and the Marcus A. Foster Award as the outstanding School District Administrator in Philadelphia. He was named "A Future Black History Maker" by the Philadelphia Daily News and received the University of Pennsylvania's distinguished "Martin Luther King Award. He is the author of I Choose to Stay. He will receive a Doctor of Humane Letters.
Ursinus College is a highly selective, independent coeducational liberal arts college located on a scenic, wooded 168-acre campus, 28 miles from Center City Philadelphia. The college is one of only 8 percent of U.S. Colleges to possess a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa. Its web site is located at http://www.ursinus.edu.
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