U.S. Senator Jack Reed will deliver the commencement address to more than 1,200 students during the Roger Williams University undergraduate commencement ceremony on Saturday, May 18, 2019

Fitzpatrick, Edward

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U.S. Sen. Jack Reed to Deliver Commencement Address at RWU

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Roger Williams UniversityDOCS@RWUFeatured News Story The Week at Roger4-10-2019U.S. Sen. Jack Reed to Deliver CommencementAddress at RWUEdward FitzpatrickRoger Williams UniversityFollow this and additional works at: https://docs.rwu.edu/weekatroger_featured_newsPart of the Higher Education CommonsThis News Article is brought to you for free and open access by the The Week at Roger at DOCS@RWU. It has been accepted for inclusion in FeaturedNews Story by an authorized administrator of DOCS@RWU. For more information, please contact mwu@rwu.edu.Recommended CitationFitzpatrick, Edward, "U.S. Sen. Jack Reed to Deliver Commencement Address at RWU" (2019). Featured News Story. 586.https://docs.rwu.edu/weekatroger_featured_news/5864/11/2019 U.S. Sen. Jack Reed to Deliver Commencement Address at RWU | Roger Williams Universityhttps://www.rwu.edu/news/news-archive/us-sen-jack-reed-deliver-commencement-address-rwu 1/4 News ArchiveU.S. Sen. Jack Reed to Deliver Commencement Address atRWUCivil rights leader Cli ord R. Montiero and RWU Trustee Marcia Morris will receivehonorary degrees during May 18 ceremony. On May 17, RWU Law graduates will hearfrom Professor Lee Epstein, leading scholar in judicial decision-makingApril 10, 2019 By Edward FitzpatrickBRISTOL, R.I.  – U.S. Senator Jack Reed will deliver the commencement address to more than 1,200 students duringthe Roger Williams University undergraduate commencement ceremony on Saturday, May 18, 2019.During the ceremony, RWU will present honorary degrees to civil rights leader Cli ord R. Montiero, who marchedwith the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and served as president of the NAACP Providence branch for a decade, and toMarcia Morris, Vice Chair of the RWU Board of Trustees and a Presidential Search Committee co-chair who served inexecutive management and chief legal o cer roles during her career.A day earlier, on Friday, May 17, the RWU School of Law will hold a commencement ceremony for 130 students, asthe state’s only law school celebrates its 25th year. One of the leading scholars in judicial decision-making, ProfessorLee Epstein of Washington University in St. Louis, will deliver the commencement address and receive an honorarydegree. Former Rhode Island Department of Corrections Director A.T. Wall II and Rhode Island trial lawyer Peter A.DiBiase also will receive honorary degrees from the law school.Later in the day, on Friday, May 17, 150 students will take part in RWU’s graduate commencement ceremony. They willhear from Rebekah Snyder, who received a master’s degree in forensic psychology from RWU in 2016 and whoserved as the victim advocate for the Michigan attorney general’s o ce in the sexual abuse case involving USAGymnastics doctor Larry Nassar.4/11/2019 U.S. Sen. Jack Reed to Deliver Commencement Address at RWU | Roger Williams Universityhttps://www.rwu.edu/news/news-archive/us-sen-jack-reed-deliver-commencement-address-rwu 2/4U.S. Senator Jack Reed“Senator Reed’s career and ideals are closely aligned with the core purpose of RWU: To serve society throughengaged teaching and learning,” RWU Interim President Andy Workman said. “Senator Reed o ers the graduatingstudents an inspirational example of a life of public service. His career demonstrates the power of higher education toadvance not just himself but the lives of all his fellow Rhode Islanders. He truly exempli es the core values of thestate’s founder and our namesake, Roger Williams.”As Rhode Island’s senior U.S. senator, Reed is a senior member of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee,and he has helped secure millions of dollars in federal funding to enhance the university's research capacity andsupport programs such as the Center for Economic and Environmental Development. He is also the Ranking Memberon the Senate Armed Services Committee.Reed graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point (B.S., ’71), Harvard University’s Kennedy School ofGovernment (M.P.P., ’73) and Harvard Law School (J.D., ’82). He received an Honorary Doctor of Public Service fromRoger Williams University in 2009.Reed served in the 82nd Airborne Division as an Infantry Platoon Leader, a Company Commander, and a BattalionSta  O cer. He was also a member of the faculty at West Point as an Associate Professor in the Department of SocialSciences. A er completing his active duty military service and working as an attorney in private practice, Reed serves threeterms in the Rhode Island Senate before winning election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1990, followed byhis election to the U.S. Senate in 1996. Time magazine has called Reed “a serious, intellectually honest veteran and anexpert on defense issues in the Senate,” and The New York Times has described him as “a quiet dealmaker respectedby colleagues in both parties.”Montiero has been one of Rhode Island’s foremost civil rights advocates for decades. Born in 1937 in Providence, heattended the University of Rhode Island and took classes at what was then Roger Williams College. He became aleader in the Rhode Island chapter of the old Congress of Racial Equality. He registered Southern sharecroppers tovote. He staged sleep-ins, marches and rallies at the Rhode Island State House to press for fair housing laws, and hepushed for diversity in the state judiciary and law enforcement agencies.In 1963, Montiero participated in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. In 1965, he marched over theEdmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., with MLK as part of an e ort to register black voters in the South. In the face ofthreats, violence and virulent racism, he handled communications and provided security as voting-rights advocatesmarched 54 miles from Selma to Montgomery, where MLK delivered his “How Long, Not Long” speech.Montiero served as president of the Providence branch of the National Association for the Advancement of ColoredPeople for a decade. In 2015, he returned to Selma and stepped onto the Edmund Pettus Bridge 50 years to the daythat he marched there with MLK. “We know the march is not over,” he said. “There are more bridges to cross.”4/11/2019 U.S. Sen. Jack Reed to Deliver Commencement Address at RWU | Roger Williams Universityhttps://www.rwu.edu/news/news-archive/us-sen-jack-reed-deliver-commencement-address-rwu 3/4Morris has served on the Board of Trustees of Roger Williams University since 2009, as a Vice Chair of the Board since2016, as Chair of the Recruitment, Retention and Student Life Committee since 2010, and as Chair of the Campaignfor Civic Scholars since 2016. She served as a co-chair of the Presidential Search Committee, which played a key rolein the selection of Ioannis (Yannis) Miaoulis as RWU’s President-Designate.Morris served as the  rst General Counsel for The Stride Rite Corporation from 1983 to 1992, and for the last three ofthose years as the President of the Stride Rite Children’s Wholesale Division. In 1994, she joined The PresbyterianHospital in the City of New York as its Chief Legal O cer and Senior Vice President for Strategy, and a er mergingthat enterprise with New York Hospital, she served in those same roles for New York Presbyterian Hospital until 2000.Over the ensuing 16 years, she served in a strategic consulting capacity for The College Board, as Vice President ofGovernment A airs and Corporate Relations for Praecis Pharmaceuticals Corporation, and in an Of Counsel capacityfor The Center for Applied Research.Morris received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Connecticut College, a law degree from Boston University School ofLaw, and a Master of Public Administration from The Kennedy School at Harvard University.Lee Epstein, Ethan A.H. ShepleyDistinguished University Professor atWashington University in St. LouisLee Epstein is the Ethan A.H. Shepley Distinguished University Professor at Washington University in St. Louis. Herresearch and teaching interests center on law and legal institutions, especially the behavior of judges. She is a Fellowof the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Academy of Political and Social Science. She alsoserves as Co-Director of the Center for Empirical Research in the Law, Lecturer in Law at the University of Chicago, anda Principal Investigator of the U.S. Supreme Court Database project. A recipient of 12 grants from the NationalScience Foundation, Professor Epstein has authored or co-authored more than 130 articles and essays and 18 books,including “The Choices Justices Make.”“Lee Epstein is a rare academic,” RWU Law Dean Michael J. Yelnosky said. “Her research has been remarkablyin uential. She has changed our understanding of the factors that in uence judicial behavior. But there is more. Heruse of empirical methods to reveal those factors was on the leading edge of a revolution in the use of empiricalmethods in American law schools, a practice that has now become mainstream. And although thoseaccomplishments are worthy of honoring at our commencement exercises, there is even more. She is an entertainingspeaker – her enthusiasm for her subject is palpable, her insights are keen, and she is precise and witty. I look forwardto having her with us as we celebrate the accomplishments and the promise of the members of the Class of 2019.”A.T. Wall was the long-time director of the Rhode Island Department of Corrections (his 18 years in that role made himthe longest-serving corrections director in the United States). He retired in 2018. His work in the corrections  eldbegan in 1976, when he served as a line probation o cer in New Haven, Conn. A er graduating from Yale Law4/11/2019 U.S. Sen. Jack Reed to Deliver Commencement Address at RWU | Roger Williams Universityhttps://www.rwu.edu/news/news-archive/us-sen-jack-reed-deliver-commencement-address-rwu 4/4School, he worked in the New York District Attorney’s o ce and the Vera Institute of Justice before joining the RhodeIsland Department of Corrections, where he spent the remainder of his career. A champion for innovations in the eld, he set policy direction and oversaw institutions with some 13,000 pretrial and sentenced admissions a year.  Peter A. DiBiase, Esq., is one of the preeminent trial lawyers in Rhode Island. His 54-year legal career began at theRhode Island Public Defender’s O ce as a summer clerk. A er his graduation from law school, he was hired as anAssistant Public Defender and served as the Rhode Island Mental Health Advocate. He served with distinction in bothpositions, clearly demonstrating his commitment to public service. Upon leaving the Public Defender’s O ce, Peterwent into private practice. He has served as a member of the Supreme Court Disciplinary Board, the Supreme Court’sCommittee on Character and Fitness, and the Judicial Tenure Commission. He received the Rhode Island BarAssociation’s 2016 Ralph P. Semono  Award for Professionalism.The undergraduate commencement ceremony will take place on Saturday, May 18, under the tent on the mainathletic  eld of RWU’s Bristol campus. The processional steps o  at 9 a.m., and the ceremony begins at 10 a.m. The law school commencement ceremony will take place on Friday, May 17, under the tent on the main athletic  eld.The processional steps o  at 12:20 p.m., and the ceremony begins at 12:30 p.m.The graduate commencement ceremony will take place on Friday, May 17, under the tent on the main athletic  eld.The processional steps o  at 3:30 p.m., and the ceremony begins at 4 p.m.For commencement details, go to: https://www.rwu.edu/academics/commencement.ACADEMICS LIFE @ RWU SCHOOL OF LAW

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U.S. Sen. Jack Reed to Deliver Commencement Address at RWU

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