Sunday, May 24, 2009

Ryan Crocker ’71

President George Bridges welcomed about 4,000 Whitman seniors, family members and friends, staff and faculty to Commencement ceremonies here Sunday. He noted that he and the graduates had completed four years of challenging work at Whitman and made it their own. Commencement speaker Ryan Crocker ’71, former ambassador to Iraq, urged the 350 graduating seniors to “seek causes larger and greater than yourselves.”

Crocker, who retired from a storied 38-year career in the Foreign Service and was honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom earlier this year, noted that perseverance does not always require hope but that it can create hope. “Both require a sense of strategic patience,” he added, urging the audience to practice that patience. “It wasn’t only Marcus Whitman whose plans require time and distance.”

He urged students to “take this education with you, and it will serve you well if you use it well…and before you leave, offer a final word of thanks to those sitting on my left (the faculty). The gift of your Whitman College education,” he reminded graduates, “is greater than the sum of your natural intelligence; it is a result of the work of the faculty that will take you where they’re going.

Six faculty members were recognized as recipients of 2009 distinguished faculty awards for teaching, scholarship, mentoring and advising. These awards reflect the highest recognition of Whitman College faculty excellence.

• Amy Molitor, adjunct assistant professor of environmental studies and sport studies, received the Suzanne L. Martin Award for Excellence in Mentoring;
• David Carey, professor of philosophy, received the George Ball Award for Excellence in Advising;
• Lynn L. Sharp, associate professor of history, received the Robert Y. Fluno Award for Distinguished Teaching in Social Sciences;
• Rebecca Hanrahan, assistant professor of philosophy and director of Encounters, received the Thomas D. Howells Award for Distinguished Teaching in Humanities and Arts;
• Kurt R. Hoffman, professor of physics and interim director of the Center for Teaching and Learning, received the A.E. Lange Award for Distinguished Science Teaching; and
• Zahi Zalloua, assistant professor of foreign languages and literatures, French, received the G. Thomas Edwards Award for Excellence in Teaching and Scholarship.

Whitman continued its tradition of honoring elementary, middle and/or high school teachers who have made a difference in the lives of the college’s seniors by awarding a Distinguished Teaching Award to Michael A. Schaefer, an advanced placement U.S. history and social studies teacher at Olympia High School in Olympia, Wash., who was nominated by Kimberly Brennan ’09.

Othal Hawthorne Lakey ’57, presiding prelate of the Sixth Episcopal District of the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, received an honorary doctor of humane letters, as did Bill Priedhorsky ’73, a fellow of the Los Alamos National Laboratory and director for laboratory research and development there. “Thank you for what you have done for me,” said Bishop Lakey, “and for what I have been able to do to help others.” Priedhorsky credited his parents and thanked his grandmother (who paid his tuition of $4,000 a year) and Whitman for placing him in the position as a scientist where there exists unlimited science and technology to contribute to the human condition.

End

CONTACT:
Lenel Parish, Whitman College News Service
(509) 527-5156
parishlj@whitman.edu