Specter To Deliver 2003 Commencement Address At Muhlenberg College
United States Senator Arlen Specter will serve as Commencement speaker for Muhlenberg College’s Class of 2003, Sunday, May 18, at 2 p.m. on the College Green.Wednesday, March 12, 2003 02:51 PM
United States Senator Arlen Specter will serve as Commencement speaker for Muhlenberg College’s Class of 2003, Sunday, May 18, at 2 p.m. on the College Green.
Elected to the U.S. Senate in 1980, Specter authored the Armed Career Criminal Act, hailed by the law enforcement community as a major tool in fighting violent street crime in America, early in his first term. As Chairman of the Intelligence Committee in the 104th Congress, Specter led the fight against international terrorism after writing legislation authorizing prosecution of terrorists who maimed or murdered U.S. citizens anywhere in the world. His bill creating the Inspector General of the Central Intelligence Agency was the only reform legislation to emerge from the Iran-Contra affair.
From his seat on the subcommittee that funds the Department of Education, Labor and Health/Human Services, Specter has led the fight to increase funding for education and to double the budget for the National Institutes of Health, which has allowed remarkable progress in the fight against Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, cancer, heart attacks and other diseases.
Specter has served as Chairman of the Veteran’s Affairs Committee since 1997 and has been a formidable advocate for Pennsylvania’s interest in steel, agriculture, mass transit, hi-tech, coal, infrastructure and military installations.
Specter lives in Philadelphia with his wife Joan, a former four-term City Councilwoman. They have two sons and four grandchildren.
Kathryn Wolford, president of Lutheran World Relief, will give the Baccalaureate address at 10 a.m. on Commencement day. Both Specter and Wolford, along with Amadou Makhtar Diop, Ph.D., technical director for the Rodale Institute’s global programs, and Howard Weitz ’74, M.D., director of clinical cardiology at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, will receive honorary degrees during the Commencement ceremony.
