Globetrotters chairman to address UI graduates
Mannie Jackson, chairman and owner of the Harlem Globetrotters, will be keynote speaker at the 137th University of Illinois commencement Sunday.
Jackson, a 1960 UI graduate, will speak at both the 10:30 a.m. and 2 p.m. ceremonies at the UI Assembly Hall.
Jackson served as the first black team captain of the Illini basketball team, and, along with fellow Edwardsville graduate Govoner Vaughn, was one of the first two blacks to earn varsity letters. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in education.
After graduation, Jackson played for the Globetrotters from 1962-1964. He then attended graduate school at the University of Detroit while working at General Motors. In 1968, he went to work for Honeywell Inc., eventually becoming senior vice president.
Jackson has served on the boards of six Fortune 500 companies. He is chairman of Boxcar Financial Holding of Las Vegas. He has been the Globetrotters' chairman and owner since 1993.
In February, the university got a $2 million gift from Jackson; his wife, Cathy; and their children, Cassie and Candace, to create the Mannie L. Jackson Illinois Academic Enrichment and Leadership Program to benefit the College of Applied Health Sciences. It will provide first-generation college students and students from under-represented groups with mentoring, academic skill development, career leadership training and one-on-one support.
Illinois alumni Mannie Jackson acknowledges the crowd after being given a plaque during a time out in first half of the Illinois-Purdue basketball game Feb. 2 at the Assembly Hall in Champaign. Jackson, chairman and owner of the Harlem Globetrotters, will be the keynote speaker at Sunday's commencement ceremony. By John Dixon
Jackson is founder of the Executive Leadership Council for black corporate executives and serves on its board of directors. In 1993, he was named one of the nation's 40 most powerful and influential black executives by Black Enterprise magazine.
The UI will award Jackson an honorary doctor of humane letters degree at Sunday's commencement. Four other people will receive honorary degrees.
At the 10:30 a.m. ceremony:
– James McPherson, professor emeritus at Princeton University and Civil War historian, will receive an honorary doctor of letters degree. McPherson won the Pulitzer Prize in history, a Christopher Award and Best Book Award of the American Military Institute for his book, "Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era." Along with UI graduate David Herbert, he is considered the most important interpreter of Abraham Lincoln's life.
McPherson, the youngest full professor ever at Princeton University, has written 11 books and served as president of the Society of American Historians and the American Historical Association.
– Andrew Sorensen, president of the University of South Carolina, will receive an honorary doctor of university administration degree. In 1983, Sorenson became dean of the School of Public Health at the University of Massachusetts at the beginning of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. He persuaded Gov. Michael Dukakis to establish a state AIDS research council, which Sorenson chaired.
He was executive director of the AIDS Institute at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions from 1987 to 1990, when he became provost and vice president for academic affairs at the University of Florida. In 1996 he was named president of the University of Alabama, and since 2002 he has been at South Carolina.
Sorensen earned a bachelor's degree in history from the UI in 1959 and earned another bachelor's in divinity from Yale University in 1962. He earned a master's degree in public health at the University of Michigan and returned to Yale for a master's and doctorate in philosophy.
At the 2 p.m. ceremony:
– Jay Gates, director of the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., since 1998, will receive an honorary doctor of fine arts degree. He has also been curator of the Cleveland Museum of Art and the St. Louis Art Museum, and director of the Seattle Museum of Art and the Dallas Museum of Art.
The oldest museum of modern art in the U.S., the Phillips Collection began an academic partnership with the UI in June 2006. Students from the UI, the D.C. area and elsewhere have taken classes on modern art taught by UI faculty members and members of the Phillips staff.
Gates earned a bachelor's degree in art history at College of Wooster in 1968, and studied at the Institute of European Studies at the University of Vienna before earning a master's at the University of Rochester in 1970.
– Peter Walker, a landscape architect, will receive an honorary doctor of fine arts degree.
A graduate of the University of California at Berkeley in 1955, Walker pursued graduate work in landscape architecture at the UI in 1956 and earned a master's degree from Harvard University's Graduate School of Design. He served as chair of the landscape architecture department at Harvard from 1977 to 1978, was adjunct professor there from 1976 to 1999, held the Charles Eliot Chair at Harvard in 1992 and was chair of the department of landscape architecture at Berkeley from 1997 to 1999.
He has been honored by the Federal Housing Authority, American Society of Landscape Architects, American Institute of Architects and National Endowment for the Arts.
OTHER AWARD RECIPIENTS
The University of Illinois Alumni Association will present five awards at Sunday's commencement ceremonies:
Alumni Achievement
Recipient: Doris Kelley Christopher
Title: Founder and chairwoman of The Pampered Chef kitchen company.
Notable: With husband Jay, gave UI $11.5 million to build Doris Kelley Christopher Hall to house Family Resiliency Program, which supports research and education to help strengthen families.
Awards/activities: Member of America's Second Harvest, The Better Business Bureau of Chicago and Northern Illinois, and the UI Foundation; received Association of Corporate Growth's "Chicago 2007 Lifetime Achievement" award; inducted into Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans.
UI degree: Bachelor's in home economics, 1967.
Recipient: Freeman Hrabowski III
Title: President of University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
Notable: Dedicated to improving minority participation and performance in science and math education. Has been consultant for National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health and universities and school systems nationally.
Awards/activities: Board member of Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching; received U.S. Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring; elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
UI degrees: Master's in mathematics, 1971; doctorate in education.
Recipient: Sheila Crump Johnson
Title: Founding partner of Black Entertainment Television, chief executive officer of Salamander Hospitality.
Notable: Ambassador for humanitarian organization CARE, supports organizations that help children and young adults explore creatively; only woman to have stake in three professional sports teams – WNBA's Washington Mystics, NBA's Washington Wizards and NHL's Washington Capitals.
Awards/activities: Film producer and accomplished violinist; chairs board of Parsons The New School for Design in New York; member of UI Foundation board.
UI degree: Bachelor's in music, 1970.
Alumni Humanitarian
Recipient: Betty Burch Mohlenbrock
Title: Founder of Family Literacy Foundation and forerunner of United Through Reading. Former elementary school teacher and reading tutor.
Notable: United Through Reading records and sends home DVDs of deployed military parents reading to their children; has reached thousands of troops throughout the world, including Iraq and Afghanistan, and prisoners in San Diego.
UI degrees: Bachelor's in elementary education, 1962; master's in education, 1964.
Distinguished Service
Recipient: Carol Keiser-Long
Title: Founder and president of C-ARC Enterprises (biofuels, alternative feedstocks and agricultural education) and C-BAR Cattle Co.
Notable: Former vocational education teacher, established internship program for women in College of ACES.
Awards/activities: Has served on boards of ACES Alumni Association and UI Foundation; chaired UI Alumni Association board from 1999 to 2001; received Comeback Illini and other alumni awards.
UI degree: Bachelor's in animal science, 1968.
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