BILL CLINTON TO ADDRESS MIDDLEBURY GRADS

Author: Ben Salkowe

Former President Bill Clinton will deliver Middlebury's 2007 commencement address on May 27, marking the first address by a modern president to the College. The 42nd President of the United States will receive an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree at the commencement and address an expected crowd of more than 5,000.

"It is a great honor to have President Clinton as the Middlebury College commencement speaker," said President of the College Ronald D. Liebowitz in an official statement released to The Campus. "His dedication to a career in public service and the philanthropic work he has done since leaving public office are an inspiration to college students seeking ways to change and improve both our country and our world."

Clinton will be joined by six other honorary degree recipients - Robert De Cormier, Janet Tiebout Hanson, James Gustave Speth, Marc A. and Dana Lim vanderHeyden and Dr. Huda Y. Zoghbi. College officials are expected to formally announce Clinton's commitment, and the other honorary degree recipients, later this afternoon.

The idea of bringing Clinton to campus was first proposed by the College's Board of Trustees, who secured the commitment with some assistance from a Middlebury alum who had worked for the former President.

Since leaving the Oval Office, Clinton has worked for a range of major national and international causes through the William J. Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS initiatives and prominent collaborations with former President George H.W. Bush to raise funds for victims of the Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Clinton has also remained in the media spotlight as the nation's potential first First Man, should his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY), enter the 2008 presidential contest. Sen. Hillary Clinton has not committed to attending the commencement with her husband.

Before first running for the presidency, Bill Clinton served as the governor of Arkansas, chairman of the National Governors' Association and had been an attorney general of Arkansas.

Elected president in 1992, and again in 1996, Clinton was the first Democratic president in six decades to win a second term in office. His administrations' accomplishments included a significant economic expansion, major welfare reform, budget surpluses, lower levels of unemployment, poverty and crime and high home ownership and college enrollment rates. While political and personal scandals clouded his later presidency, Clinton largely regained popularity after leaving office.

The William J. Clinton Foundation has reduced the cost of antiretroviral drugs for over 500,000 people and works in 25 countries to provide medical services and treatment to adults and children living with HIV/AIDS. In addition, the Foundation's initiatives focus on international development, climate change, the childhood obesity epidemic in America and economic empowerment.

Clinton graduated from Georgetown University and in 1968 won a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford University. He received a law degree from Yale University in 1973, and shortly thereafter entered politics in Arkansas.

In addition to Clinton, six other individuals, all with ties to the College or local community, will be awarded honorary degrees.

Robert De Cormier, founder and director of the Vermont Symphony Orchestra Chorus, will receive an honorary Doctor of Arts degree. De Cormier graduated from the Juilliard School of Music and was the former music director of the New York Choral Society. De Cormier has conducted and composed for engagements ranging from Broadway to opera to television.

Janet Tiebout Hanson, founder and chairman of $2 billion Milestone Capital Management, and a managing director at Lehman Brothers, will receive an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree. Hanson's Milestone Capital Management is the only women-owned institutional money market fund management company in the U.S. Hanson is also the founder of 85 Broads, an internet-based global network of former and current Goldman Sachs women professionals. Hanson's sister, Mary E. Tiebout, is a 1975 Middlebury graduate.

James Gustave Speth, Dean and Sara Shallenberger Brown Professor in the Practice of Environmental Policy at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, will receive an honorary Doctor of Science degree. Speth was the administrator of the United Nations Development Program, the founder and president of World Resources Institute and a co-founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council. He is the father of Catherine McCullough, a member of the Middlebury College class of 1991.

Marc A. vanderHeyden, the president of Saint Michael's College, and his wife, Dana Lim vanderHeyden, will receive an honorary Doctor of Letters degree. St. Michael's 15th president assumed the presidency in 1996 and announced last year that he would step down from the position in June of 2007. Dana vanderHeyden, who has served in various roles as a professor and academic administrator for almost three decades, is currently a member of the board of Vermont Public Radio, Burlington City Arts and the Region I Board of the Vermont Symphony Orchestra.

Dr. Huda Y. Zoghbi, a professor in the Baylor College of Medicine Departments of Pediatrics, Molecular and Human Genetics, and Neurology and Neuroscience, and an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Center, will receive an honorary Doctor of Science degree. In 1999, Zoghbi discovered the gene mutation that causes the rare, disabling neurodevelopmental disorder Rett syndrome. She is the mother of Roula Zoghbi, a member of the Middlebury College class of 2007.