Skidmore's 94th Commencement Set for May 21 at SPAC

Approximately 530 members of the Class of 2005 will receive bachelor's degrees at Skidmore College's 94th Commencement exercises on Saturday, May 21. The ceremony, open to the public, will begin at 11 a.m. at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center.

Approximately 30 students in the College's University Without Walls also will receive bachelor's degrees. Six master of liberal arts degrees will be presented as well.

Skidmore will award honorary doctoral degrees to three distinguished guests: Carolyn Patty Blum, visiting fellow at Kellogg College, Oxford University, and an authority on refugee and human rights law; Phil Ramone, one of the most highly respected producers in the recording industry; and Tim Russert, political analyst for NBC Nightly News and managing editor and moderator of Meet the Press. Each degree recipient will deliver brief remarks.

Following a Skidmore tradition, the keynote commencement address will be given by a faculty member – this year, Professor of History Tadahisa Kuroda – chosen by the graduating class. President Philip A. Glotzbach will address the graduates and their guests, as will Rachael Beard, president of the Class of 2005.

Keynote speaker Kuroda is a scholar of American history who has taught at Skidmore for 36 years and has served as chair of the College's History Department and as associate dean of the faculty. He once said that as a historian, he has been less concerned about current controversies and more interested in how things got to where they are today, a line of thinking that governed his research on the electoral college, which was the topic of his 1991 Edwin M. Moseley Faculty Research Lecture.

At Skidmore, Kuroda has taught courses in American colonial history, the Civil War and reconstruction, and the history and political thought of the American Revolution. He will retire from the college this spring. Biographical profiles of the degree recipients follow:

Carolyn Patty Blum

In addition to her work with the Oxford Master's Programme, Blum serves as senior legal advisor to the Center for Justice and Accountability, based in San Francisco. In that capacity, she worked on a series of cases to establish legal culpability for state terror in El Salvador in the 1980s. She also teaches refugee law and supervises students at the Human Rights Clinic at Columbia University Law School.

Blum is a clinical professor of law emerita at the University of California's Boalt Hall Law School, where she taught for more than two decades, specializing in immigration law, refugee rights, and human rights. She has written on refugee law and human rights as well as on film and the law.

The recipient of two Ford Foundation research grants, Blum twice received the Carol King Memorial Award from the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild, and also received the Jack Wasserman Memorial Award for Excellence in Litigation from the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

Blum is a graduate of Northeastern University Law School.

Phil Ramone

Nominated for 30 Grammy Awards, Ramone has received 12. His three most recent Grammy Awards came this past February for his work on Genius Loves Company, by Ray Charles (Album of the Year and best Surround Sound Album). He also received a Grammy for Outstanding Technical Significance to the Recording Field.

Ramone has been a pioneer in audio technology, supporting such innovations as the use of the compact disc, digital video disc, hi-definition recording, and surround sound. The first CD ever pressed – Billy Joel's 52nd Street – was a Phil Ramone production, as was the first pop DVD release, Dave Grusin Presents West Side Story.

The list of artists with whom Ramone has collaborated includes such diverse musicians as Clay Aiken, Tony Bennett, Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin, Elton John, Quincy Jones, Paul McCartney, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Billy Preston, Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, and Brian Wilson. His numerous concert, film, Broadway, and TV productions include A Star is Born, Beyond the Sea, Flashdance, Midnight Cowboy, Seussical, and the Songwriters Hall of Fame Awards.

Ramone champions music programs in public schools to ensure that children have the opportunity to foster their music talents. He serves on the board of the National Mentoring Partnership and the Berklee College of Music.

Tim Russert

Managing editor and moderator of Meet the Press and political analyst for NBC Nightly News and the Today show, Russert also anchors The Tim Russert Show, a weekly interview program on CNBC, and is a contributing anchor for MSNBC. He is senior vice president and Washington bureau chief of NBC News, which he joined in 1984.

In 1985 Russert supervised the live broadcasts of Today from Rome, negotiating and arranging an appearance by Pope John Paul II, a first for American TV. In 1986 and 1987 Russert led weeklong broadcasts of NBC News from South America, Australia, and China.

He took over the helm of Meet the Press in December 1991. Since then, the show has become the most-watched Sunday morning interview program in America. Now in its 58th year, Meet the Press is the longest-running program in the history of TV.

Before joining NBC News, Russert observed firsthand the inner workings of the executive and legislative branches of government as counselor in the New York Governor's office in 1983 and 1984 and as a special counsel in the U.S. Senate from 1977 to 1982.

A native of Buffalo, N.Y., he is a graduate of John Carroll University and the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law. Last year Russert's book, Big Russ and Me, Father and Son: Lessons of Life, was a best seller.

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