Lafayette Will Grant Four Honorary Degrees at Its 165th Commencement, Saturday, May 20

Lafayette College will award honorary degrees to four distinguished leaders as part of the College's 165th Commencement exercises, Saturday, May 20.

Those to be honored include Michael H. Danjczek, the president and executive director of The Children's Home of Easton, Easton, Pa., and Marcia D. Greenberger, the founder and co-president of the National Women's Law Center, Washington, D.C.

Lafayette has announced that George F. Will, the noted columnist, television personality, and author, will give the commencement address and will receive the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters, and Peter J. Paris, the Elmer G. Homrighausen Professor of Christian Social Ethics at Princeton Theological Seminary, will deliver the baccalaureate sermon and will be awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity.

The Baccalaureate service is at 10:30 a.m. The Commencement processional begins at 2:15 p.m. Both ceremonies will be held outdoors on the Skillman Library Plaza. The alternate location in case of rain is Allan P. Kirby Sports Center.

Count Gilbert de Pusy La Fayette, a direct descendant of the Marquis de Lafayette through the Marquis' son, George Washington Lafayette, is scheduled to be a special guest at commencement. The count and his wife will view highlights of Skillman Library's Marquis de Lafayette collections and will receive a brief tour, guided by Diane Windham Shaw, the special collections librarian and College archivist, of sights in historic Bethlehem, where the Marquis recovered in 1777 from wounds he received in the Battle of Brandywine.

For a quarter-century Danjczek has been president and executive director of The Children's Home of Easton, which includes both therapeutic home and community-based programs. Its main campus serves as home to as many as 74 young people, ages 10 to 18, with an additional capacity for more than 80 children off campus in satellite foster care and group homes.

Since its founding in 1885, the private, non-profit agency has provided supervision, care, counseling, and love to thousands of troubled youths from dysfunctional families. Its individually designed programs are able to give children as much freedom as they can handle and as much guidance as they need, helping them return to the community as responsible citizens.

Danjczek has served on numerous local, regional, and national boards. He is chair of the Pennsylvania Council of Children's Services and past chair of the Alliance for Families and Children (formerly the National Association of Homes and Services for Children). The co-chair of the advisory board of the Lehigh Valley Multi-Purpose Sports and Health Facility, he is a member of the board of directors of Families International, Parents Anonymous of Pennsylvania, and Twin Rivers Community Bank. He is also a member of the authority board of Northampton Community College.

He has been president of the National Fellowship of Child Care Executives, president of the board of the Helen Beebe Speech and Hearing Center, and a member of the boards of the Council on Accreditation of Services for Families and Children and the Lehigh Valley Drug Treatment Program.

In the fall of 1994, Danjczek joined with Barbara Rothkopf, the wife of Lafayette President Arthur J. Rothkopf, to launch the ProKids Alliance to foster collaboration among Lehigh Valley agencies that provide services to children residing in the Easton area.

Danjczek is included in the 2000 edition of Who's Who in the World and has been included for years in Who's Who in America and Who's Who in Finance and Industry. He has received many honors during his service to the Children's Home. They include the Service to Mankind Award from the Sertoma Club of Easton; the President's Award for Community Service from the Easton Area Sales and Marketing Executives; the Distinguished Service Award from the Pennsylvania Committee on the International Year of the Child; and the Distinguished Service Award from the Easton Area Jaycees.

The Children's Home and Lafayette collaborated last year to establish a professional foster home adjacent to the Lafayette campus for children who are exceptionally community-minded plus full-time professional foster parents. This was the second time the Children's Home and Lafayette joined forces to open a facility near the Lafayette campus. Since 1997 the Children's Home has operated a home near Lafayette for students who excel academically.

A native of Phillipsburg, N.J., Danjczek graduated from Notre Dame High School, Easton, where he was senior class president and won two state wrestling titles. He earned bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees from Lehigh University. Lehigh honored him with its Distinguished Alumni Award, and he received the Gafney Award for Outstanding Scholarship from the Lehigh University Association of Educational Administrators, and the Distinguished Service Award from Lehigh's College of Education.

Danjczek lives on the Children's Home campus with his wife, Cynthia. They have four children, Bill, Liesel, Rachael, and Peter.

Marcia Greenberger's creation of the National Women's Law Center in 1981 established her as the first full-time women's rights legal advocate in Washington, D.C.

The National Women's Law Center is a non-profit organization that works to advance and protect women's legal rights. The center focuses on major policy areas of importance to women and their families, including employment, education, reproductive rights and health, family support and income security, with special attention given to the needs of low-income families.

A recognized expert on sex discrimination and the law, Greenberger has participated in the development of key legislative initiatives and litigation protecting women's rights, particularly in the areas of education, employment, and health. She has been a leader in developing strategies to advance the cause of women and their families on the federal and state levels, and in the successful passage of legislation protecting women against sexual harassment and pay discrimination, providing new educational and training opportunities, and securing affirmative action. She has also been counsel in landmark litigation establishing new legal precedents for women in the enforcement of laws prohibiting discrimination in employment, education, and health.

In the area of education, Greenberger has been involved in major litigation, legislative initiatives, and administrative enforcement involving Title IX since its passage in 1972. She was co-counsel in the landmark 1999 Supreme Court case Davis v Monroe City Board of Education, which held that schools must address student-on-student harassment under Title IX, as well as counsel on friend-of-the-court briefs in every Title IX case to reach the Supreme Court.

Greenberger earned a J.D. degree, cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania, where she also received a bachelor of arts degree with honors. She practiced tax law with the Washington, D.C., firm of Caplin and Drysdale from 1970-72, and in 1972 she started and became director of the Women's Rights Project of the Center for Law and Social Policy.

Her leadership and contributions are reflected in the professional honors she has received and the numerous boards on which she serves. She was selected to receive the Woman Lawyer of the Year Award by the D.C. Women's Bar Association in 1996, was honored by the Center for Law and Social Policy in 1995, and given the William J. Brennan Jr. Award by the District of Columbia Bar in 1994. She received a Presidential appointment to the National Skills Standards Board, and is a member of the Executive Committee of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the Georgetown University Law Center Women's Law and Public Policy Fellowship Program, and the National Policy Council of the Disablilty Rights Education and Defense Fund. She is also a member of the American Law Institute, the American Bar Association Commission on Women in the Profession, and a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation.