May 23rd, 2007 | John Jay College of Criminal Justice
Iraqi Veteran — Class Valedictorian
Leaders from Academia and the Arts Will Receive Honorary Degrees for their
Life-long Commitment to Academic Excellence, Literature and Social Justice
NEW YORK, May 31, 2007 – More than 10,000 students, alumni, faculty and University guests, will gather in the Madison Square Garden Theatre for the College’s Commencement exercises on Thursday, May 31, 2007, at 10:30 AM and 3:30 PM. College President Jeremy Travis, will open both Commencement ceremonies. The day is the high point for undergraduate and graduate students who have worked tirelessly in pursuit of academic excellence.
***Valedictory Oration***
Kevin Greene is class valedictorian for the 2007 graduating class. An immigrant from Georgetown, Guyana, he arrived in this country with his family in 1980. During his senior year in high school, he enlisted in the U.S. Army doing a 12-month tour of duty in Iraq. He also was activated in the wake of 9/11. During his time in the Army, he visited Korea, Italy, Germany, Ireland and Kuwait. He is currently a platoon sergeant in the New York Army National Guard. Kevin will graduate from the BA/MA program at the College with both a baccalaureate degree in Public Administration and Master of Public Administration degree. Kevin’s cumulative grade point average for 129 credits completed in this joint program is 3.997.
***Salutatory Oration***
Ulrike Kucharczyk is the salutatorian for the class of 2007. Ten years ago,
she immigrated from Dresden, Germany to the United States. She left a career in banking to pursue a degree full-time. Ulrike will graduate with a baccalaureate degree in International Criminal Justice and hopes to join a federal law enforcement agency. Her cumulative grade point average is 3.968.
***Honorary Degrees to Be Awarded***
John Jay College of Criminal Justice will grant three honorary degrees. This year’s honorary degree recipients are from academia and the arts.
Patricia Cornwell, Doctor of Letters
Patricia Cornwell’s crime fiction has been translated into 32 languages across more than 35 countries. A string of novels beginning more than a decade ago have reached number one on the New York Times best-seller list, including Cornwell’s latest, “Predator,†in 2005. She has also distinguished herself through her philanthropy, giving multi-million dollar gifts to academic institutions whose work advances knowledge in criminal justice science, research and education.
Richard Delgado, Doctor of Laws
The University Distinguished Professor of Law and Derrick Bell Fellow at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, Professor Richard Delgado is considered the preeminent Latino legal scholar in the country. He is a founder of the Critical Race Theory movement, a school of thought that places race at the very nexus of life in the United States. A prolific writer, Delgado has published more than 146 journal articles and 43 book chapters. In 2005, he was chosen to deliver the keynote address at the first colloquium sponsored by John Jay’s new Center on Race, Crime and Justice.
Deborah Lipstadt, Doctor of Humane Letters
Dr. Deborah Lipstadt is an internationally renowned scholar of contemporary Jewish history. The Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies at Emory University and Director of the University’s Rabbi Donald A. Tam Institute for Jewish Studies, she represented President Bush in 2005 as a member of an official American delegation to the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Lipstadt is also the author of a recent book chronicling her successful legal battle in a British court against a Holocaust denier.
About John Jay College of Criminal Justice: An international leader in educating for justice, John Jay College of Criminal Justice of The City University of New York offers a rich liberal arts and professional studies curriculum to upwards of 14,000 undergraduate and graduate students from more than 135 nations. In teaching, scholarship and research, the College approaches justice as an applied art and science in service to society and as an ongoing conversation about fundamental human desires for fairness, equality and the rule of law. For more information, visit www.jjay.cuny.edu.
For more information contact:
Chris Godek 212-237-8628
Doreen Vinas 212-237-8645