Newshour Correspondent Ray Suarez To Deliver Commencement Address
Ray Suarez, senior correspondent for The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, will speak at Muhlenberg College’s 158th Commencement on May 21, 2006 at 10 a.m..Wednesday, March 29, 2006 01:59 PM
The ceremony will be held on the College’s historic quad.
Suarez has with NewsHour since 1999. During 2004 he was an essayist for BBC Radio, joining a group of US-based writers on a new program called “State of the Union.” The weekly commentaries were the successors to the late Alistair Cooke’s “Letter From America.”
Suarez has more than 25 years of varied experience in the news business. He came to The NewsHour from National Public Radio where he had been host of the nationwide, call-in news program "Talk of the Nation" since 1993. Prior to that, he spent seven years covering local, national, and international stories for the NBC-owned station, WMAQ-TV in Chicago.
Suarez wrote the book The Old Neighborhood: What We Lost in the Great Suburban Migration (Free Press), and has contributed to several others, including Brooklyn (Workman, 2001), Saving America's Treasures (National Geographic, 2000), Las Christmas ( Knopf, 1998) and About Men ( Poseidon, 1986). His essays and criticism have been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun, among other publications.
Suarez was also a Los Angeles correspondent for CNN, a producer for the ABC Radio Network in New York, a reporter for CBS Radio in Rome, and a reporter for various American and British news services in London.
Over the years he has narrated, anchored or reported many special programs and documentaries for public radio and television including a weekly series, Follow the Money (1997, PBS), and By The People (PBS, 2004), The Journey Home (2004, WETA) The Execution Tapes (2001, Public Radio) Through Our Own Eyes (2000, KQED), Take This Heart (1998, KCTS) State of the Union (1997, Wisconsin Public Television), Of Hopes and Fears (1995, WTTW), and Growing Up Scared (1994, WTTW).
Suarez shared in NPR's 1993-94 and 1994-95 duPont-Columbia Silver Baton Awards for on-site coverage of the first all-race elections in South Africa and the first 100 days of the 104th Congress, respectively. He has been honored with the 1996 Ruben Salazar Award from the National Council of La Raza, Current History Magazine's 1995 Global Awareness Award, and a Chicago Emmy Award.
Suarez holds a B.A. in African History from New York University and an M.A. in the Social Sciences from the University of Chicago. He has been awarded honorary doctorates by four colleges and universities, most recently by Xavier University in Cincinnati. He’s also been honored with a Distinguished Alumnus Award from NYU, and a Professional Achievement Award from the University of Chicago.
A life member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, Suarez is a founding member of the Chicago Association of Hispanic Journalists. A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., he currently lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife and three children.
