James H. Billington, the Librarian of Congress, will be the commencement speaker at The University of Tulsa's 107th commencement on Saturday, May 5. More than 600 students will receive diplomas during TU's graduation ceremony which begins at 2 p.m. in the Donald W. Reynolds Center, located at Eleventh and Harvard.
Billington was sworn in as The Librarian of Congress in 1987 and is the 13th person to hold that position since the Library was established in 1800. He has championed the Library's outreach efforts to the nation by digitizing and putting on-line free of charge five million of the Library's most important primary documents of American history. He created the Library's first national private sector support group, the James Madison Council, whose chairman, John W. Kluge, provided the largest single monetary donation in the history of the Library to establish endowed chairs to bring the world's greatest and most wide-ranging minds to the Library.
Billington was class valedictorian at Princeton University, where he graduated with highest honors. Three years later, he earned his doctorate from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar at Balliol College. Following service with the U.S. Army and in the Office of National Estimates, he became a history instructor at Harvard University and an assistant professor of history and research fellow at Harvard's Russian Research Center. He then moved to the faculty of Princeton University, where he was professor of history from 1964 to 1974.
From 1973 to 1987, Dr. Billington was director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, where he established eight new programs and founded the Wilson Quarterly in 1976.
Billington is the author of many books, including "The Face of Russia," the companion book to the three-part television series that he wrote and narrated for the Public Broadcasting Service. The series explores the history and promise of the Russian people through their art and culture. Billington has been host, commentator, or consultant on other educational and network television programs, and he has accompanied nine congressional delegations as well as library and church delegations to the former USSR. In June 1989, he accompanied President and Mrs. Reagan to the Soviet Summit in Moscow.
Billington has received 28 honorary degrees from U.S. universities as well as the Woodrow Wilson Award from Princeton University, the UCLA Medal and the Pushkin Medal of the International Association of the Teachers of Russian Language and Culture. He was awarded honorary doctorates from the University of Tblisi in the Republic of Georgia, the Armenian Academy of Sciences and the Moscow State Humanities University.
Billington has been decorated as Chevalier and as a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters of France, as a Knight Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit by the Federal Republic of Germany, and he has received the Gwanghwa Medal from the Republic of Korea. In 2000, he was elected to the Academy of Sciences of the Russian Federation.
TU's other commencement activities include the Phi Beta Kappa honor society initiation ceremony at 5:30 p.m. Friday, May 4 at TU's Sharp Chapel; Baccalaureate services at 10 a.m. Saturday, May 5 on Sharp Chapel Plaza; the College of Law hooding ceremony at 10 a.m. Saturday, May 5 at First Baptist Church; and the School of Nursing awards and recognition ceremony at 5 p.m. in TU's Allen Chapman Activity Center.
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