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June 3, 2002
Sp107
Contact: Sarah Maxwell
Director of Media Relations
507.646.4183
Carleton College to Hold 128th Commencement
Northfield, Minn.— Carleton College will award the bachelor of arts degree to 495 graduating seniors at the 128th annual commencement exercises at 9:30 a.m. on Saturday, June 15, on the lawn west of Hulings Hall on the Carleton College campus. In case of severe weather, commencement will be held indoors at the Recreation Center. This year marks the final commencement for President Stephen R. Lewis, Jr., who will retire at the end of June after 15 years at the College.
Three seniors will speak at commencement: Luke Peterson, a political science/ international relations major from Duluth, Minn., and Kenechi Ejebe, a biology major from Plymouth, Minn., together will present a talk titled "The Carleton Toolkit," and Ruby Sheets, an American studies major from Brooklyn, N.Y., will present "Experiencing 950 Acres."
The College will award honorary degrees to Nina Archabal, director of the Minnesota Historical Society, who will give a talk titled "Independence Is a Beautiful State of Mind"; Anthony Downs, Carleton Class of 1952 and senior fellow in the Economics Studies Program at the Brookings Institution, who will speak on "A Truth Story"; and Kenji Tanaka, chair of the Tanaka Memorial Foundation, who will present "Ichigo Ichie: Such Encounters Are Felt for One Hundred Years."
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Archabal has been director of the Minnesota Historical Society since 1987. Under her leadership, the Society opened the new Minnesota History Center in 1992. It has become one of the premier historical organizations in the country with a major press, a statewide historic sites network, state-of-the-art conservation laboratories and archives, museum and library. The Society is constructing a new museum in the ruins of the Washburn A Mill – a National Landmark – on the riverfront in Minneapolis, scheduled to open May 2003. |
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Archabal has also been an advocate for historic preservation and of making the state’s history widely accessible to the public. She serves on the Board of the American Association of Museums and Harvard University in addition to many others. In 1997, President Clinton awarded Archabal the National Humanities Medal. She earned a B.A. from Radcliffe College, an M.A.T. in music history from Harvard and a Ph.D. in music history from the University of Minnesota.
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Downs is Senior Fellow in the Economics Studies Program at the Brookings Institution. His areas of expertise include democracy, urban demographics, housing, real estate, real estate finance, metropolitan planning, urban policy and suburban sprawl. Before joining Brookings, Downs spent 18 years as a member and then chair of the Real Estate Research Corporation, a nationwide consulting firm advising private and public decisionmakers on real estate investment, housing policies and urban affairs. President Lyndon Johnson appointed him to the National Commission on Urban Problems (the "Douglas Commission") in 1967. |
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Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Jack Kemp appointed him to the HUD’s Advisory Commission on Reducing Regulatory Barriers to Affordable Housing in 1989. In 2000, he advised the Department of the Army on its housing privatization program. He also has been a consultant to five other HUD Secretaries. Downs is the author or co-author of 20 books and more than 450 articles. He received a B.A. in political theory and international relations from Carleton in 1952, and a Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University in 1956.
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Tanaka is chair of the Tanaka Memorial Foundation. He is committed to international understanding through education and by building links among the people of many nations, and is a loyal and generous supporter of Carleton. In 1959, Tanaka founded the Tokyo Television Engineering Vocational School. He responded to new technologies, opportunities and student interests and added other schools, eventually transforming the school into Technos International College. |
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With the addition of educational and research institutions in Australia, the United Kingdom and France, he has created a worldwide network through the Tanaka Ikueikai Educational Trust. Tanaka honored his father, founder of Meijo University in Nagoya, Japan, by establishing the Tanaka Memorial Foundation in New York.
The Foundation is both a personal memorial and an expression of gratitude to the people of the United States and other nations that ensured that the dignity of Japan and its people was restored after World War II. Through the Foundation, the Tanaka family endowed the Tanaka Memorial Professorship of International Understanding at Carleton in 1996. Each year as part of Technos International Week, Carleton is invited to send a small number of faculty and students to Japan for two weeks to become acquainted with the culture of Japan. The Tanaka Memorial Prize, awarded each spring, honors a Carleton senior for outstanding achievement in fostering international good will.
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