The University of Portland will honor the following individuals at Commencement on Sunday, May 4:
Carolyn Woo (pictured) has been chosen to receive the Christus Magister Medal, the University’s highest honor. Woo is president and CEO of Catholic Relief Services, which reaches some 130 million people in nearly 100 countries annually with its relief and development work. Before joining CRS in 2012, Woo was dean and professor at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza School of Business (recognized as the best in America for undergraduate and ethics education during her tenure) and a vice president and professor at Purdue University, where she earned all three of her degrees.
John Beckman, of the University of Portland’s Class of 1942, will receive an honorary doctorate. He was instrumental in the invention of the photo-finish camera; is a superb photographer; is a serious amateur cosmologist, pianist, and theoretical mathematician; is a licensed pilot; for many years ran a ranch in California; and, with his wife Patricia, is a noted philanthropist to musical, historical, communal, and educational causes in Oregon. He and Patricia are the founders of the University’s Humor Project, a multi-disciplinary effort to study and foment humor as a “spiritual and revolutionary energy in every field of endeavor, from business to politics to the arts and beyond.”
James Popham, of the University of Portland’s Class of 1953, will receive an honorary doctorate. Popham is a professor of education emeritus at UCLA, an internationally renowned scholar on testing methods and efficacy, and the author of many books. UCLA has honored him as one of its best 20 professors of the 20th century. Jim has been president of the American Educational Research Association, is the founding editor of the journal Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, and is a wonderfully wry and witty speaker, as much in demand for his humor as for his expertise in educational evaluation and measurement.
Ed Ray, president of Oregon State University since 2003, will receive an honorary doctorate. Ray has directed a remarkable era at one of the state’s largest public universities; during his tenure the school has raised more than $900 million for students and faculty, developed a national reputation for research in science, opened and expanded the Oregon State U/Cascades campus in Bend, and successfully grappled with declining public funding.
Most Reverend Alexander Sample, the eleventh Archbishop of Portland in Oregon (the fourth, Alexander Christie, was the founder of the University of Portland in 1901), will receive an honorary doctorate. Sample was twice appointed a bishop by Pope Benedict XVI – first to the Diocese of Marquette, Michigan, in 2005, and then to Portland in 2013, succeeding Most Reverend John Vlazny. A Montana native, Archbishop Sample earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees in metallurgical engineering at Michigan Tech, before being ordained a priest in 1990, and serving widely as a parish priest before his elevation.
Anne Thompson, NBC News’ Chief Environmental Affairs correspondent since 2007, will receive an honorary doctorate. She has traveled the world reporting on pollution, alternative fuels, global warming, land usage, and new technologies, among many other topics. She has also been the network’s chief financial correspondent and national news reporter, and was an award-winning reporter for WDIV-TV in Detroit and KSDK-TV in Saint Louis. She began her broadcasting career at WNDU-TV in Indiana, after her graduation from the University of Notre Dame. At the invitation of University president Father Bill Beauchamp, C.S.C., Thompson will deliver the University’s 2014 Commencement Address.
For more information contact the president’s office at 7101 or simek@up.edu.