Hackney To Deliver 2004 Commencement Address At Muhlenberg College
Sheldon Hackney, Ph.D., will serve as Commencement speaker for Muhlenberg College's Class of 2004, Sunday, May 23, at 10 a.m. on the College Green. This year's Commencement, the College's 156th, marks the first Commencement for Peyton R. Helm, who was inaugurated as Muhlenberg's 11th president in October 2003.Tuesday, March 30, 2004 10:48 AM
Sheldon Hackney, Ph.D., will serve as Commencement speaker for Muhlenberg College's Class of 2004, Sunday, May 23, at 10 a.m. on the College Green. This year's Commencement, the College's 156th, marks the first Commencement for Peyton R. Helm, who was inaugurated as Muhlenberg's 11th president in October 2003.
A former provost of Princeton University and president of Tulane University, Hackney rose to national prominence when he served as president of the University of Pennsylvania from 1981-1993. Under Hackney's leadership, the university strengthened its focus on undergraduate education while enhancing and augmenting its nationally distinguished graduate and professional schools in business, medicine and the liberal arts. The Hackney era also witnessed an extraordinary growth and improvement of the campus and the successful completion of what was, at the time of its announcement, the first capital campaign to set a goal in excess of one billion dollars. Hackney left the University of Pennsylvania in 1993 to accept President Clinton's appointment as chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, which funds projects in history, literature, philosophy and other humanities disciplines. As chairman, he endeavored to unify the humanities community, develop fiscally prudent policies and save the organization from Congressional budget cuts while launching a national dialogue on American values.
Hackney, who earned his bachelor's degree at Vanderbilt University, holds a master's and doctorate in history from Yale University. He is now a professor of history at Penn, where he specializes in the history of the American South since the Civil War. Currently at work on a book about the American identity from pre-colonial days to the present, Hackney won the Albert J. Beveridge Award of the American Historical Society for his book "Populism to Progressivism in Alabama."
Hackney will receive an honorary doctor of humanities degree during Muhlenberg's Commencement ceremony. Others receiving honorary degrees include Robert Moses, recipient of the Heinz Award for the Human Condition; James Steffy, former interim president of Muhlenberg College; grass-roots activist Terri Swearingen; and Pulitzer Prize winner Gary Wills.
