Newswise — Swarthmore College President Alfred H. Bloom will award honorary degrees to Marcia A. Grant '60, educator and founding dean of the first liberal arts college in Saudi Arabia, civil rights leader and Algebra Project founder Robert Parris Moses, and J. Robert Prichard '71, president and CEO of Torstar Corporation, at the College's 135th commencement on Sunday, June 3. About 350 seniors are expected to graduate at the ceremony, which will be held at 10 a.m. in the Scott Outdoor Amphitheater. The senior class speaker, as voted by her classmates, is Eva Holman '07, an English literature major with a minor in history from Bellevue, Wash.
Centennial Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility Jennie Keith will address the graduating class at baccalaureate services at 11 a.m. in the amphitheater on June 2. The Baccalaureate is a formal celebration of the significance of Commencement, centered around the inspirational remarks of a friend of the College.
Marcia A. Grant '60 Marcia A. Grant '60 is passionate about promoting women and their careers. During the summer of 1999, she was asked to design and start a college for women in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Effat College now has 36 teachers and 200 students. "Starting what I call an Islamic liberal arts college drew on everything I learned at Swarthmore," Grant said in a recent interview in the College's alumni magazine.
A liberal arts education and early experiences in Latin America had a profound impact on Grant's values and career direction. She began her academic career teaching African and international politics at Oberlin College, and later entered the Foreign Service of USIA. She served as director of the Fulbright Program in Mexico and as a cultural attaché in Paris. For four years, she led the Edward S. Mason program for Third World government officials at Harvard's Kennedy School, and then worked with the Institute of International Education in New York. Before going to Jeddah, she was executive director of the Institute of North American Studies in Barcelona.
Grant graduated from Swarthmore with high honors in political science in 1960. She received an M.A. and M.A.L.D. in international affairs from the Fletcher School at Tufts University and later earned a Ph.D. in African studies from the London School of Economics. She also attended Princeton Theological Seminary. She has maintained close ties to her undergraduate alma mater, serving as an admissions interviewer, class president, and on Alumni Council. Her daughter, Alexandra Grant, is a member of the Class of 1994. Grant will be awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree. Robert Parris MosesRobert Parris Moses is founder and president of the Algebra Project, which helps low income students and students of color, particularly African American and Latino/a students, successfully achieve the mathematical skills that are needed for full citizenship in today's technological society. Moses views the Project as a continuation of the struggle for civil rights, a movement in which he has been actively involved for more than 40 years.
During the 1960s, Moses organized voter registration drives, sit-ins, and Freedom Schools for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Pursued by the Vietnam draft board for a war which he opposed, Moses fled to Canada in 1966 before departing for Africa in 1969 to spend the next six years teaching in Tanzania. Returning in 1977 under President Carter's amnesty program, he was awarded a five-year MacArthur genius grant in 1982 to establish and develop an innovative program to teach math to students in Boston. The program, now the Algebra Project, has reached more than 10,000 students in more than a dozen states, develops materials for middle school and high school, and advocates for educational reform and social change.
Moses graduated from Hamilton College in 1956, later earning both an M.A. and Ph.D. in philosophy from Harvard University. The author of Radical Equations: Civil Rights from Mississippi to the Algebra Project (2001), he is a Frank H.T. Rhodes Class of 1956 Professor at Cornell University. Through a partnership with the Algebra Project, he is also an Eminent Scholar at the Center for Urban Education & Innovation at Florida International University in Miami, Florida. He will be awarded an honorary Doctor of Science degree.
J. Robert Prichard '71 Since 2002, J. Robert Prichard '71 has been president and CEO of Torstar Corporation, a leading Canadian media company with two principal businesses: newspapers, led by Canada's largest daily, the Toronto Star; and book publishing, led by Harlequin Enterprises. Prior to joining Torstar, Prichard served as president of the University of Toronto (UT) for 10 years, where he is now president emeritus. As president at UT, Prichard earned a reputation as an accomplished administrator and fundraiser. During his tenure, he boosted the University's private endowment from $200 million to $1 billion (Canadian), a record for any Canadian university. He first joined UT as a law professor in 1976 and served as dean from 1984 to 1990. He has also taught at Harvard and Yale Law Schools, with a focus on the juncture of law and economics.
Prichard attended Swarthmore for three years, studying economics in the Honors Program, before transferring to the University of Chicago to pursue an M.B.A. in finance and international business. He also earned an LL.B. with honors in law from the University of Toronto and an LL.M. from Yale Law School. A sister and niece are both Swarthmore graduates and a nephew, Andrew Sniderman, is a member of the Class of 2007. Prichard will be awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree.
Swarthmore CollegeLocated near Philadelphia, Swarthmore is a highly selective liberal arts college whose mission combines academic rigor with social responsibility. Enrolling approximately 1,500 students, Swarthmore is consistently ranked among the top liberal arts colleges in the country.
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