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Tammy Baldwin, a Smith College alumna and the
first woman to serve in the House of Representatives from her native Wisconsin, was
the speaker at the college’s 131st commencement ceremony Sunday,
May 17. Prior to an address by the six-term Congresswoman, she
and three other accomplished women received honorary degrees.
Baldwin graduated from Smith in 1984 with a degree in
government and mathematics and in 1989, while serving in her first elected office
as a member of the Dane County Board of Supervisors, earned her law degree from the
University of Wisconsin Law School.
At the age of 37, Baldwin became both the first woman
and the first non-incumbent, openly gay person to be elected to represent her state
in Congress. She was re-elected to her sixth term in 2008 and currently serves in
the 111th Congress.
Assuring universal health care is the issue that inspired
Baldwin to pursue political office and the issue that motivates her to continue.
In health care, her legislation reauthorizing a program that provides cancer screening
for low-income and uninsured women and another to increase benefits for service members
who lose their vision were both signed into law in recent years. Further, her legislation
to improve the lives of people living with mobility impairment, the Christopher and
Dana Reeve Paralysis Act, passed in the Senate in 2009 and is expected to pass in
the House.
Equally committed to ensuring the nation’s energy
independence, Baldwin recently introduced legislation to create a National Greenhouse
Gas Registry that will serve as a clearinghouse for accurate, comprehensive and consistent
information on emissions nationwide.
In this session of Congress, Baldwin also serves on
the Committee on Energy and Commerce and its subcommittees on Health, Energy and
Environment and the Judiciary Committee and its Subcommittee on the Constitution,
Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.
As an advocate for those in our society whose voices
are not heard, Baldwin frequently counsels to ignore “the naysayers, the cynics,
and the keepers of the status quo.”
Just last year, Baldwin received the Smith College Medal,
given annually to those alumnae who, in the judgment of the trustees, exemplify in
their lives and work the true purpose of a liberal arts education.
In addition to Baldwin, the following women received
honorary degrees from Smith on May 17:
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Jenny Holzer,
internationally recognized installation artist
Holzer is widely known for her provocative signs and LED displays in public
spaces. Originally an abstract artist focusing on painting and printmaking,
Holzer began working with text as art after moving to New York City in 1977.
The main focus of her work is the use of words and ideas in such varied media
as LED signs, plaques, benches, stickers, T-shirts and the Internet. Her work
has been integrated into the performances of Canadian contemporary dance troupe
Holy Body Tattoo and has been featured in international exhibitions including
the Venice Biennale, the Dia Art Foundation and the Guggenheim Museums in New
York City and Bilbao. Holzer attended Ohio University, Rhode Island School
of Design and the Independent Study Program at the Whitney Museum of American
Art. |
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Charlayne Hunter-Gault,
print and broadcast journalist
Hunter-Gault’s road to journalism began at the University of
Georgia, where she and a classmate made civil rights history as the first African
American students in 1961, following two years of efforts by the state to deny
them admittance. After receiving her bachelor’s degree, Hunter-Gault
became a reporter at The New Yorker and later went on to work as an
investigative reporter and anchorwoman on the local evening news before joining
the New York Times reporting staff. She has also worked for such prestigious
news outlets as The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, a tenure marked by two
Emmys and a Peabody for excellence in broadcast journalism; NPR and CNN. Hunter-Gault
recently left her post as CNN’s Johannesburg bureau chief and correspondent,
which she had held since 1999, to pursue independent projects. |
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Claire Fraser-Liggett,
microbiologist
Fraser-Liggett, director of the newly created Institute for Genome
Sciences at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, has played a leading
role in the sequencing and analysis of human, animal, plant and microbial genomes.
She previously served as president and director of the Institute for Genomic
Research (TIGR) in Rockville, M.D., where, during her tenure, federal funding
tripled to $60 million per year. At TIGR, Fraser-Liggett led research teams
that sequenced the genomes of many microbial organisms and helped to initiate
the era of comparative genomics. With more than 220 scientific publications
to her name, she has been the most frequently cited scientist in the field
of microbiology for the past decade. Fraser-Liggett has served on a number
of National Research Council committees on counter-bioterrorism, domestic animal
genomics, polar biology and metagenomics. She earned her doctorate in pharmacology
from the State University of New York at Buffalo. |
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2009 Archive
Student Address
Ivy
Day Speech
Prizes & Awards
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Commencement
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