**PRESS RELEASE**
For Immediate Release:
Saturday, June 23, 2007Contact:
Matt Losak, 347-531-8031HARKIN PROMISES GRADUATES THAT FIGHT FOR WORKERS’ RIGHT TO UNIONIZE WILL CONTINUE
PRESIDENT SCHURMAN BIDS FAREWELL
Silver Spring, Maryland—The National Labor College (NLC) today conferred honorary doctorates upon Iowa Senator Tom Harkin and retiring NLC President Susan J. Schurman at its ninth annual commencement ceremonies. The event was held indoors for the first time in the campus’s new 72,000 square foot meeting and learning facility, the Lane Kirkland Center. Harkin, who gave the keynote address, noted unprecedented challenges facing the labor movement while congratulating graduates whose pursuit of higher education strengthens labor for the battles ahead.
“During World War II, the graduates of West Point and Annapolis reported directly to the front lines; they went right into battle against the fascists in Europe and Asia,” said Iowa Tom Harking. “Similarly, the graduates here today, will be reporting directly to the front line in the fight to lead and energize the labor movement in the United States.”
Harkin, whose immigrant mother passed away when he was very young, described his humble origins growing up in a small town in Iowa, the son of a coal mining father. The commencement audience of about 800 graduates, families, labor leaders and dignitaries sat in silence as Harkin illustrated the importance of unions in building a healthy middle class with the story of his brother, who worked for more than 20 years as a member of the United Auto Workers before his plant was sold to a union-busting owner that destroyed his livelihood.
“And what does a 54-year-old deaf man do in a predicament like that?” asked Harkin of the hushed audience. “He got a job as a janitor at a shopping mall – working nights for minimum wage, with no benefits and no vacation time. It didn’t just destroy his livelihood, it broke his spirit.”’
Harkin, an original co-sponsor of the Employee Free Choice Act, vowed to continue to fight for the rights of workers to organize and to protect workers from abusive management tactics and indifferent government enforcement of workers’ rights.
This year’s commencement conferred 91 NLC undergraduates and 18 graduates from partnership programs with American University and the University of Baltimore. Several students were recognized for distinguished work including Christopher J. Valverde of the Sheet Metal Workers International Association, whose senior paper received the 2007 Seidman Award for its focus on issues important to older workers. Other award winners included Judy RaPue of the Communications Workers of America and Davida Russell from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees for their study documenting the contributions of their mothers activism in founding their union locals, and Brad Wilson of the International Association of Theatrical State Employees for his contribution to labor and the humanities. Wilson wrote and produced a play for his senior project play entitled Somewhere Between: An Imagined Autobiography that combines its author’s love of history while revealing the awesome price some union leaders pay for their service. Carlos Ramos of the United Food and Commercial Workers and Arthur Hector Sr. of the Law Enforcement Supervisors’ Union of the Virgin Islands received the President Award for overcoming extraordinary challenges in pursuit of their degrees. Ramos was hailed by his professors for his persistence in acquiring scholarly research techniques in the completion of his senior project paper, and Hector, for completing his paper while on active duty in Iraq where he is currently deployed.
Departing NLC President Susan J. Schurman was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters. John Sweeney, Chairman of the NLC’s Board of Trustees noted ten years of accomplishments including the transformation of the NLC from the former George Meany Center to a degree granting institution in 1997, winning accreditation in 2004 and the completion of a campus-wide refurbishment and expansion that included the October opening of the Lane Kirkland Center.
“Under Sue’s leadership, the college created the degree program from which all of you are graduating,” said Sweeney. “It won accreditation and it completed this ambitious campus improvement program and raised the stature of labor’s college around our nation -- and, in fact around the world.”
Schurman said she was confident that the college would endure for generations to come noting that she is now a member of the Class of 2007. “The NLC is now a place where workers can come to better prepare themselves for the struggle for justice,” she said.
The National Labor College is the only accredited college in the world exclusively dedicated to educating union members, leaders, activists and staff. Originally founded by the AFL-CIO in 1969 as the George Meany Center for Labor Studies, the center became the NLC in 1997 offering upper level degree completion programs for union members seeking to finish their college education. The NLC offers a unique combination of fully online courses along with partially online program with a low-residence on-campus component that allows full-time workers with families maximum flexibility to schedule study time. The college is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, an independent, regional accrediting body recognized by the U.S. Department of Education.
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