U.S. Librarian of Congress to be Honored at AMU Commencement
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Published on Thursday, 06 March 2014 20:02
This year's commencement speaker at Ave Maria University will be the U.S. Librarian of Congress, James Hadley Billington, university President Jim Towey announced Thursday.
"This remarkable man is one of the nation's pre-eminent scholars, and when you consider the fact that he was appointed by President Ronald Reagan and has served for 26 years at the helm of the Library of Congress, his ability to transcend the partisanship in Washington is simply amazing," Mr.Towey said in a statement.
Dr. Billington is only the 13th person to serve in the job since the Library of Congress was established in 1800.
At AMU, he will deliver the commencement speech and will be awarded an honorary doctoral degree, an honor he has received on more than 40 other occasions.
Almost 200 students are expected to receive undergraduate and graduate degrees at the commencement exercises, which will be held Saturday, May 10, at 10 a.m. in the Golisano Fieldhouse on campus.
After graduating with highest honors from Princeton University in 1950, Dr. Billington earned a doctorate from Oxford University where he was a Rhodes Scholar. He taught history at Harvard, and was a professor of history at Princeton for 10 years, leaving in 1974 to serve as the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. In 2008, President George W. Bush presented him with the Presidential Citizens Medal.
Mr. Towey called Dr. Billington "a singularly unique individual who is both octogenarian and humanitarian, and a genuine man of faith."
