Albertus Magnus College Celebrates 87th Commencement

Albertus Magnus College on Sunday, May 16, celebrated its 87^th Commencement, awarding more than 700 undergraduate and graduate degrees in an outdoor ceremony in from of venerable Rosary Hall.  Thousands of family members and friends cheered and applauded the graduating students and honorary degree recipients.

Awarded were 115 Associate degrees, 414 Bachelor degrees and 200 Master degrees.  Among the jubilant new alumni are a father and son who received MBAs; a husband who earned a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies degree and his wife who earned a Bachelor of Science degree; a mother and daughter earning Bachelor’s degrees; father and daughter receiving Bachelor’s degrees; and many siblings completing various degree programs.

Bishop Theodore L. Brooks, pastor of the Beulah Heights Pentecostal and recipient of an Albertus honorary degree in 2003, gave the charge to the graduates and the benediction.

Biographies and citations for the 2010 honorary degree recipients-- Carl A. Anderson, Sister Ann Bailie, O.P., Jane Nady Sigmon ’70 and Lula White—follow.  

CARL A. ANDERSON
DOCTOR OF HUMANE LETTERS

Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus since 2000, Carl A. Anderson is the chief executive officer and chairman of the board of the world’s largest Catholic family fraternal service organization with more than 1.75 million members.  He has had a distinguished career as an educator and public servant.  From 1983 to 1998, he was a visiting professor of family law at the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family at the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome.  In 1988, he became the founding vice president and first dean of the Washington, D.C., session of this graduate school of theology now located at The Catholic University of America. For four years, he served in various positions of the Executive Office of the President of the United States, including special assistant to the President and acting director of the White House Office of Public Liaison.  Following his service at the White House, Mr. Anderson served for nearly a decade as a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

He is the author of the New York Times bestseller “A Civilization of Love: What Every Catholic Can Do to Transform the World,” co-author of “Our Lady of Guadalupe: Mother of the Civilization of Love,” also a New York Times bestseller, and co-author of “Called to Love:  Approaching John Paul II’s Theology of the Body,” among others.

Mr. Anderson currently is a member of the Board of Trustees of The Catholic University of America and the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.    He holds degrees in philosophy from Seattle University and in law from the University of Denver.  A member of the Bar of the District of Columbia, he is admitted to practice law before the United States Supreme Court.  He has received honorary doctorates from The Catholic University of America, The Pontifical Theology Academy of Krakow and St. Vincent’s Seminary in Latrobe, Pennsylvania.

Presentation
Carl A. Anderson, as Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus, you are the leader of the world’s largest Catholic family fraternal service organization, which was founded in New Haven at St. Mary’s Church on Hillhouse Avenue in 1881 and chartered by the State of Connecticut in 1882.

Through humanitarian and philanthropic activities, your 1.75 million members have a profound impact on the lives of men, women and children in their local communities around the globe.  In the past decade, the Knights of Columbus has donated more than $1.3 billion to charity.

Degree Citation
Carl A. Anderson, you are the extraordinary leader of a worldwide organization, and have been a professor of family law, public servant and member of the United States Commission on Civil Rights, as well as an elegant writer.  Surely, commitment to God’s will and service to others define your personal journey.

SISTER ANN BAILIE, O.P.
DOCTOR OF HUMANE LETTERS

Dominican Sister of Peace, administrator and master teacher, Sister Ann Bailie has led a dedicated life of service as an active and committed member of her religious congregation.  During four decades at Albertus Magnus College, she has personified the Dominican Order’s motto: to contemplate and to share with others the fruits of contemplation.

A passionate New Yorker, Sister Ann was born and grew up in Manhattan, attending schools where she was taught and inspired by Dominican Sisters.  She attended St. Vincent Ferrer Elementary School and Dominican Academy.  Both provided a solid academic and spiritual foundation, which would one day change the course of her life.  After two years at Hunter College of the City of New York, she made the decision to join the Dominican Order.  She received her bachelor’s degree from Manhattan College and went on to earn a master’s degree in French Language and Literature from Université Laval in Québec City; she also completed advanced studies in French literature at New York University.

Prior to coming to Albertus, Sister Ann was a secondary school principal, and teacher of French, science and math for many years.  Here at the College, she is an associate professor of French, and has chaired both the French and foreign language departments; in recent years, she has eloquently engaged numbers of Albertus students in the study of the humanities.

Sister Ann Bailie held a Yale University Visiting Faculty Fellowship and studied in Paris on a Fulbright U.S. Government Fellowship.  Over the years, this professor extraordinaire and thoughtful member of the Albertus community of scholars has inspired and mentored countless students in the College’s day and evening programs.  She has transmitted her enthusiasm for languages and other cultures, especially her beloved French, to students of all ages.  Sister Ann’s complete dedication to the adventure of education has made the academic journey of her students one that inspires both lifelong learning and personal joie de vivre.

Presentation
Sister Ann Bailie, O.P., member of the Dominican Sisters of Peace and associate professor of French and chair of the Department of  Foreign Language at Albertus Magnus College, you have led a life of service to others and have done so with good humor and sensitivity.  You have taught, encouraged, nurtured and inspired students of all ages here at Albertus.

Saint Thomas Aquinas, one of the patron saints of this College, wrote in his great work the Summa Theologica:  “Better to illuminate than merely to shine, to deliver to others contemplated truths than merely to contemplate.”  You, Sister Ann, are, indeed the personification of these ideals.”

Degree Citation
Sister Ann Bailie, Dominican Sister of Peace, we at Albertus say mille fois merci for your selfless devotion and faithful service to your religious congregation and to this College.

JANE NADY SIGMON ‘70
DOCTOR OF HUMANE LETTERS

Crime victims’ rights advocate Jane Nady Sigmon is the senior coordinator for international programs at the U.S. State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons.  For 25 years, Dr. Sigmon has worked to improve the treatment of crime victims in the United States and abroad.  Currently, she is responsible for planning and implementing U.S. foreign assistance to combat human trafficking around the world.  She previously served as the first victim assistance specialist in the Bureau of Consular Affairs, developing new policies and procedures for consular assistance to Americans who become victims of violent crime overseas.  She developed the State Department’s Assistance to Crime Victims course, training consular officers serving in U.S. embassies and consulates worldwide.

At the U. S. Department of Justice, Dr. Sigmon served as director of the Office for Victims of Crime.  While at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services she served as associate commissioner of the U.S. Children’s Bureau and oversaw the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect.  In addition to her government service, she was director of research and training coordinator for the American Prosecutors Research Institute, meeting the needs of local prosecutors across the country.  As executive director of VALOR (Victims’ Assistance Legal Organization), she helped to improve and expand the treatment of victims of violent crime through advocacy, training and public policy reform.  For her leadership in establishing victim assistance programs on American Indian reservations, she received the first Senator John Heinz Award.  She also received the Superior Honor Award from the State Department for her efforts to assist victims of the September 11 attack and the American Society of Victimology’s Ed Stout Award for innovation in the field of victim services. 

In addition to a bachelor’s degree from Albertus Magnus College, Dr. Sigmon holds a master’s degree from Boston University and the doctor of philosophy degree in school psychology from Duke University.  She is the author or co-author of several publications.

Presentation
Jane Nady Sigmon, you are a distinguished alumna of Albertus Magnus College and recipient of the Alumni Association award in 2001 for outstanding professional achievement.  A multi-faceted career has led to positions in the United States Department of Justice and in the Department of State, where you currently serve as senior coordinator for international programs in the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons.

For more than 25 years, you have been a tireless advocate for victims’ rights—a voice for abused children, for Native Americans, for American citizens who were victims of violent crime while traveling abroad and for those who are forced by predators into slavery.

Degree Citation
Poet Maya Angelou has said, “When we cast our bread upon the waters, we can presume that someone downstream whose face we will never see will benefit from our action.”  Jane Nady Sigmon, countless crime victims in this country and overseas have benefited from your personal commitment to action.

LULA WHITE
DOCTOR OF HUMANE LETTERS

Educator and civil rights activist, Lula White would teach history for nearly 30 years in New Haven’s high schools; in the summer of 1961, she made history herself as one of the nation’s Freedom Riders. 

Lula White was born in Alabama and moved to New Haven when she was seven years old, growing up in the Dixwell and Newhallville neighborhoods.  She attended Bassett Junior High School, just a few blocks from the College, and graduated from James Hillhouse High School, then headed to the University of Chicago, receiving a B.A. in history in 1960.  Ms. White remained in Chicago to pursue a master’s degree at the University.

In the summer of 1961, outraged by a newspaper photo of a firebombed bus in the South, she decided to join protests challenging state segregation laws.  With eight other students, she boarded a Trailways bus to Jackson, Mississippi.  When she got off the bus and attempted to enter the waiting room for whites, she was immediately arrested for breach of peace, sentenced to four months in jail and fined $200.  Refusing to pay the fine, she was transferred to Parchman State Penitentiary, where she spent two months before CORE (Congress for Racial Equality) paid her bail so that she could appeal her conviction to a higher court, and provided a ticket back to Chicago.  After completing her master’s degree, she taught for three years in Chicago, then moved to New York. 

Ms. White returned to New Haven to teach at the former Richard C. Lee High School and taught for 28 years at Career High School, retiring in 1996. Nearly 50 years after her summer as a Freedom Rider, she recalls that although she was interested in civil rights, she “always did things from afar, from the edge of the crowd.”  She remembers attending a rally for the Montgomery bus boycotts, supporting striking workers of a Chicago nursing home and marching across from the White House.  She notes that each summer of her childhood she experienced segregation when she vacationed with family in Alabama.  Of her Jackson experience, she says: “I guess I was afraid, but also thrilled in a way.  It was empowering to do something that I knew was the right thing to do.” 

Presentation
Lula White, you grew up in New Haven not far from our campus in the Dixwell and Newhallville neighborhoods.  You would become a distinguished teacher of history, but before you had your own classroom, you made history yourself.

During the long, hot summer of 1961, you chose to become part of the Civil Rights Movement as a Freedom Rider.  You traveled by bus to Jackson, Mississippi, where you and others challenged old state segregation laws.  Your effort to integrate the Jackson bus depot led to your arrest and incarceration for two months in the infamous Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman.

Degree Citation
Lula White, you have described your decision to join the Freedom Riders as “the right thing to do.”  We honor you today for your courage, for your willingness to risk your personal safety and for your faith in a better day for our country and all of its people.