‘Berg Announces Honorary Degree Recipients
Muhlenberg College will award honorary doctoral degrees to Lee Berry ’68, Barbara Crossette ’63, Sara "Sally" Gammon and Judy Shepard at its 160th Commencement ceremony, Sunday, May 20, at 10 a.m. on the College Green.Tuesday, April 8, 2008 01:59 PM
Lee Berry is a Lutheran pastor and a pilot. He served as Director of Ministry and Flight Operations for the Lutheran Association of Missionaries and Pilots in the Northwest Territories, Canada, from 1982-1998. In 1998, he founded On Eagle’s Wings Ecumenical Ministries, also in Canada. Berry has spent 8,500 flying hours as missionary bush pilot in the Canadian Arctic in single and multi-engine aircraft on wheels, skis and floats.
Born in Philadelphia, Pa., Berry was brought up in northern New Jersey. He graduated from Muhlenberg College in 1968 with a bachelor’s degree in sociology and from the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia in 1972 with a master’s of divinity. He served as a pastor at the Wind Gap Lutheran Parish in Wind Gap, Pa., from 1972-1979 and at St. Stephen’s Lutheran Church in Warren, Mich., from 1979-1982.
He is married to Sarah (Schaffner) Berry ’71, who ha worked as both an elementary school teacher and principal. They have a son, David Berry, of San Diego, Calif.
Barbara Crossette, a writer on foreign affairs and author of several books on Asia, was The New York Times bureau chief at the United Nations from 1994 to 2001 and earlier a Times chief correspondent in Southeast Asia and South Asia. She was a diplomatic correspondent in Washington and reported for the Times from Central America, the Caribbean and Canada. In New York, she has been deputy foreign editor and senior editor in charge of the Times’ weekend news operations.
In 1991, Crossette won the George Polk Award for foreign reporting for her coverage of the assassination in India of a former prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi. In 1998, she won the 25-year achievement award of The Silurians, a society of New York journalists, and the annual prize for international reporting from InterAction, a coalition of more than 150 international nonprofit aid and development organizations. In 1999, she received the Business Council of the United Nations’ Korn Ferry Award for outstanding reporting on the organization, and in 2003 the United Nations Correspondents’ Association’s lifetime achievement award.
She is the author of India Facing the 21st Century and So Close to Heaven: The Vanishing Buddhist Kingdoms of the Himalayas, as well as a book of travel essays, The Great Hill Stations of Aisa. In 2000, she wrote a survey of India and Indian-American relations, India: Old Civilization in a New World, for the Foreign Policy Association in New York.
Crossette, a member of the Muhlenberg College’s Board of Observers, has been a member of the adjunct faculty of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, and a Fulbright teaching fellow in journalism at Punjab University in Chandigarh, India. In 1994, she was the Ferris Visiting Professor on Politics and the Press at Princeton University. She has also taught seminars for Bard College on the United Nations and on writing on international affairs. In 2003, she led a workshop in journalism at the Royal University of Phnom Penh for writers and editors from Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Burma. She was a Knight International Press Fellow for 2004-2005 in Brazil.
Born in Philadelphia, Crossette received a B.A. in history and political science from Muhlenberg College in 1963. A trustee of the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Women’s Foreign Policy Group, she is also a columnist and consulting editor for the United Nations Association of the United States, an independent research and advocacy organization, and a contributing writer for World Policy Journal in New York. She is a member of the editorial advisory board at the Foreign Policy Association.
At the beginning of the fall 2007 semester, Crossette delivered the address at Muhlenberg’s Opening Convocation.
Sara “Sally” Gammon, President and CEO of Good Shepard Rehabilitation Network, provides proven leadership and strategic vision to the organization, which is celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2008. Good Shepard’s Founder, The Rev. John H. Raker, as well as his son and long-time Good Shepard administrator, The Rev. Dr. Conrad W. Raker, are both graduates of Muhlenberg College.
Gammon became president and CEO of Good Shepard in 1997. Under her leadership, the organization has more than doubled in size and budget and has expanded its scope of services. In 1997, Good Shepard consisted of a rehabilitation hospital, a long-term care facility for individuals with severe disabilities and a Work Services Division in Allentown. Today, Good Shepard operates 29 sites in 8 eastern Pennsylvania counties, including numerous outpatient rehabilitation facilities, a long-term acute care hospital for critically ill patients, four inpatient rehabilitation units and two long-term care facilities. In 1997, Good Shepard served nearly 10,000 individuals. In fiscal year 2007, Good Shepard served 36,600 people. While growing at this extraordinary rate, Good Shepard maintained is “A” bond rating.
Gammon led a multi-year campus transformation of Good Shepard’s south Allentown campus that was dedicated in 2006 and encompasses the high technology apartment building, a new parking deck, healing gardens and the Good Shepard Health & Technology Center.
Gammon provided strategic leadership in the creation of Good Shepard Penn Partners, a joint venture between Good Shepard Rehabilitation Network and the University of Pennsylvania Health System (UPHS). Good Shepard is the majority owner of the joint venture, which will become operational in July 2008 and provide inpatient and outpatient post-acute care for UPHS. Gammon serves as chair of the Good Shepard Penn Partners Board of Trustees.
She received a bachelor’s degree in physical therapy from the University of Connecticut and an M.B.A. from Rivier College in Nashua, New Hampshire. She also is a Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives (FACHE).
Gammon received the following awards and recognition: the January 7, 2008, President’s Proclamation from Allentown City Council, the 2006 Lehigh Valley Women of Distinction Award from the Girl Scouts-Great Valley Council, the 2005 Spirit of Leonardo Award from the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce and the Da Vinci Discovery Center of Science and Technology; the 2005 Pennsylvania Association of Rehabilitation Facilities (PARF) Rehabilitation Leadership Award; and the 2003 Spirit of Wellness Award from the Arthritis Foundation, Lehigh Valley Chapter; and the Spotlight Award from Eastern PA Business Journal.
Gammon serves on the following volunteer boards: Lehigh Valley Workforce Investment Board; Lafayette Ambassador Bank Board of Directors; Muhlenberg College Board of Associates; Allentown Art Museum of the Lehigh Valley Board of Associates; Tyler & Company Northeast Regional Leadership Advisory Board. She is a member of the Eastern Pennsylvania Healthcare Executive Network.
Judy Shepard is the Executive Director of the Matthew Shepard Foundation. In October 1998, Judy and Dennis Shepard lost their 21 year-old son, Matthew, to a murder motivated by anti-gay hate. Matthew’s death moved many thousands of people around the world to attend vigils and rallies in his memory. Determined to prevent others from suffering their son’s fate, Judy and Dennis decided to turn their grief into action and established the Matthew Shepard Foundation to carry on Matthew’s legacy. The Foundation is dedicated to working toward the causes championed by Matthew during his life: social justice, diversity awareness & education, and equality for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.
As Executive Director, Shepard oversees the overall management and strategic direction of the organization, while traveling across the nation speaking to audiences nationwide about what they can do as individuals and communities to make this world a more accepting place for everyone, regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, sex, gender identity and expression, or sexual orientation. Speaking from a mother’s perspective, Shepard focuses her efforts on the prevention of hate crimes and respect for everyone.
Under Shepard’s leadership, the Foundation has become a well-established, highly effective and much respected institution in the civil rights community. She has spoken to over one million young people about the impact of hate speech and violence, the importance of understanding and appreciating diversity in all of its forms and has inspired countless individuals and communities to play a role in making the world a safer place for all of us.
