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April 23, 2008

Joyner-Kersee will speak at RWU commencement

BRISTOL -- Track star Jackie Joyner-Kersee, a three-time Olympic gold medalist who is considered one of the greatest female athletes of all time, will deliver the keynote speech at Roger Williams University’s graduation ceremony May 17.

Joyner-Kersee is the latest big name to speak at the university’s commencement, following the filmmakers Peter and Bobby Farrelly last year and First Lady Laura Bush in 2006.

“For many of us, Jackie Joyner-Kersee is a household name as one of the greatest athletes of all time,” University President Roy J. Nirschel said in a statement. “But off the track, her commitment to advancing opportunities for girls in sports and enhancing the lives of children across the world makes her the perfect embodiment of the RWU core value of community service.”

Joyner-Kersee, 46, won two Olympic gold medals in the heptathlon and one in the long jump along with one silver and two bronzes. Her record in the heptathlon set during the 1988 Seoul Olympics still stands.

She’ll address Roger Williams’ more than 900 graduates at the commencement ceremony for bachelor’s and master’s degree recipients, which will be held on the Bristol campus, One Old Ferry Road, at 9:30 a.m. on Saturday, May 17.

The university will award her an honorary doctorate of humane letters.

At the School of Law’s commencement May 16, Supreme Court reporter Linda Greenhouse will be the keynote speaker.

Greenhouse joined the New York Times in 1968 and became Supreme Court correspondent for the newspaper 10 years later. For her coverage of the country’s highest court, she was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in journalism in 1998. In other assignments, she also covered Congress and the New York state legislature.

She accepted a buyout from the Times earlier this year and will become a journalist-in-residence at Yale Law School next January.

Greenhouse will receive an honorary doctorate of laws at the law school’s ceremony, which begins at 1 p.m.

The university will also award honorary degrees to Richard L. Bready, chairman and CEO of Nortek, Inc. and chairman of the board of trustees at Roger Williams, Henry Rosovsky, an economist and the Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser university professor emeritus at Harvard University, Howard G. Sutton, publisher of the Providence Journal.

The law school will award an honorary degree to the Honorable Phillip Rapoza, chief justice of the Massachusetts Appeals Court.

-- Journal staff writer Alex Kuffner

Posted by Mike McKinney  at 4:20 PM | Permalink

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