Cardinal Theodore Edgar McCarrick, Archbishop of Washington D.C., will deliver the commencement address during Canisius' undergraduate ceremonies on Saturday, May 20, 2006.
Graduate Ceremony
Steve Forbes and Wilson Greatbatch, inventor of the cardiac pacemaker and lithium battery, will receive honorary degrees at the graduate commencement ceremony. Approximately 275 graduate degrees will be conferred.
Named president and CEO of Forbes in 1990, Steve Forbes launched Forbes.com in 1996. The Web site publishes 1,500 new business, technology, finance and lifestyle articles a day, and with more than 10 million visitors a month, it is the premier Web site for senior business decision-makers and investors.
To further expand its media platform, Forbes partnered with FOX News Channel in 2001 to produce "Forbes on FOX," and TRN Enterprises in 2005 to launch "Forbes on Radio." Both programs debate current financial issues with guests from Forbes' editorial staff and business leaders.
Forbes magazine remains the company's flagship operation and one that has experienced unprecedented growth with Steve Forbes at the helm. Circulation for the bi-weekly magazine totals 900,000, making it the leading business publication in the nation, and the most trusted resource for business and investment leaders. In 2005, the company further expanded its publishing exposure with the introduction of Forbes Asia. Together, Forbes, Forbes Asia and the company's seven other local-language editions reach a worldwide audience of more than five million readers.
As the magazine's editor-in-chief, Steve Forbes regularly contributes a column called "Fact and Comment," where he writes uncompromising commentary about industry trends and forecasts how they will affect the future of global business and government. Forbes is a four-time recipient of the prestigious Crystal Owl Award, presented to the financial journalist whose economic calculations prove most accurate.
In both 1996 and 2000, Forbes expended millions of his personal fortune to campaign for the Republican nomination for presidency. Key to his platform were a flat income tax, medical savings accounts, a new Social Security system for working Americans, parental choice of schools for their children, term limits and a strong national defense. He continues to energetically promote his agenda today, as the author of Flat Tax Revolution: Using a Postcard to Abolish the IRS and A New Birth of Freedom.
Vice president of the Forbes Foundation, he has supported hundreds of national institutions and organizations and also annually contributes a percentage of his personal income to charity.
Forbes holds a bachelor's degree from Princeton University.
Undergraduate Ceremony
Cardinal Theodore Edgar McCarrick, Archbishop of Washington, D.C., will deliver the commencement address and will receive an honorary degree during the undergraduate ceremony. Approximately 600 undergraduate degrees will be conferred.
Honorary degrees will also be conferred upon Luiz F. Kahl (posthumously), the former president of The Vector Group, and philanthropists Sebastian J. '48 and Lenore M. (McGowan) Rosica. Sebastian Rosica, retired audiologist, is the chair of the board of directors for St. Mary's School for the Deaf and also serves as director of its Foundation for Deaf Education. Lenore Rosica is a member of the Board of Trustees of the McGowan Charitable Fund.
Cardinal McCarrick served as the late Pontiff's emissary on international issues. Pope John Paul II installed McCarrick as Washington's Archbishop in January 2001 and seven weeks later elevated him to the College of Cardinals. As Archbishop of Washington D.C., McCarrick is minister to the half-million Catholics in the nation's capital and its 140 parishes.
Fluent in Spanish, German, French and Italian, McCarrick travels as a human rights advocate for the Vatican. He was among the first Westerners in Rwanda following the 1984 genocide. When the Iron Curtain fell, McCarrick chaired the Committee for Aid to the Church in Central and Eastern Europe. He also served on the Secretary of State's Advisory Committee on Religious Freedom Abroad, and later became a member of the United States Commission for International Religious Freedom. He was only one of three American clerics invited to visit China in 1998 to discuss religious freedoms in that country.
McCarrick's national and international political contacts, including important ones in the church hierarchy, garnered him a seat in the Sistine Chapel, last year, where a conclave of cardinals elected Pope Benedict XVI.
McCarrick graduated from St. Joseph's Seminary in New York in 1954 and was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of New York in 1958. He earned a master's degree in history from St. Joseph's Seminary and a master's degree in social sciences and a PhD in sociology from The Catholic University of America.
Canisius College is one of 28 Jesuit colleges in the nation and the premier private college in Western New York. Canisius prepares leaders - intelligent, caring, faithful individuals able to pursue and promote excellence in their professions, their communities and their service to humanity.
RSS