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Lafayette will award honorary doctorates to five distinguished leaders at the College’s 172nd Commencement exercises Saturday, May 19.
Michael Moskow ’59, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, will receive an honorary Doctor of Public Service degree. Lou Reda, documentary filmmaker and Executive Producer of Lou Reda Productions, will be awarded an honorary Doctor of Arts. Faith Ringgold, acclaimed artist and author, will receive an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts.
The College previously announced that award-winning historian Michael Beschloss will be the Commencement speaker and the Rev. Peter J. Gomes of Harvard University, will deliver the sermon at Lafayette’s annual Baccalaureate service. Gomes will be awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity and Beschloss will receive an honorary Doctor of Letters degree.
Commencement will be held at 2:30 p.m. on the Quad. The academic procession will begin at 2:15 p.m. The Baccalaureate service will be held at 10:30 a.m. the same day, also on the Quad. In case of rain, the ceremonies will be held in Allan P. Kirby Sports Center. If there is a change in the location of the ceremonies based on weather, the information will be available by calling (610) 330-5809.
Moskow has been the eighth president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago since 1994 and a member of the Lafayette Board of Trustees since 1996. He serves as a voting member of the Federal Open Market Committee, bringing his district’s perspective to policy discussions in Washington.
He began his career teaching economics, labor relations, and management at Temple University, Lafayette, and Drexel University. From 1969 to 1977, he held a number of senior positions with the U.S. government, including under secretary of labor at the U.S. Department of Labor, director of the Council on Wage and Price Stability, assistant secretary for policy development and research at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and senior staff economist with the Council of Economic Advisers.
In 1977, Moskow joined the private sector at Esmark, Inc. in Chicago and later held senior management positions at Northwest Industries, Dart and Kraft, Inc., and Premark International, Inc., a spin-off from Dart and Kraft. In 1991, President George Bush appointed Moskow Deputy United States Trade Representative, with the rank of Ambassador. He was responsible for trade negotiations with Japan, China, and Southeast Asian countries as well as industries such as steel, semiconductors, and aircraft. Moskow returned to academia in 1993, joining the faculty of the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University, where he was professor of strategy and international management at the time of his appointment to the Chicago Reserve Bank.
Moskow is active in numerous professional and civic organizations. He is vice chairman of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, and the former chairman of the National Bureau of Economic Research and The Economic Club of Chicago. He also serves as a director of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City, the Northwestern Memorial Foundation, World Business Chicago, and the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce. He is a member of the Civic Committee of The Commercial Club of Chicago, a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, and a member of the Governing Board of the Illinois Council on Economic Education.
Moskow was born in Paterson, N.J. He received a Ph.D. in business and applied economics from the University of Pennsylvania and an A.B. in economics from Lafayette. He is a member of the Advisory Board to the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. He is also a member of the Visiting Committee of the Irving B. Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies at the University of Chicago.
Reda is executive producer (with son Scott Reda) of Lou Reda Productions of Easton, Pa., and is internationally recognized as one of the country’s outstanding documentary filmmakers. The company, which regularly produces programs of the highest quality for cable and network television, is best known for documentaries exploring events that have shaped the modern world and for its biographies.
In the 30 years since its founding, the company has produced more than 400 cable and network programs as well as numerous shorts and special presentations for networks such as The History Channel, A&E, and The Biography Channel. Some of the programs include; Eyewitness In Iraq; The Last Day of WWI: 11th Month, 11th Day, 11th Hour; When Cowboys Were King; The Day the Towers Fell; and The Blue and The Gray miniseries, which appeared on CBS.
Reda has received numerous awards and recognitions including many Emmy nominations. In 2005, the company garnered three out of the 14 nominations received by the History Channel—two for Eyewitness in Iraq.
A retired professor of art at University of California-San Diego, Ringgold began her artistic career more than 40 years ago as a painter and is best known today for her painted story quilts—art that combines painting, quilted fabric, and storytelling.
Ringgold has a close relationship with Lafayette, specifically with the Experimental Printmaking Institute (EPI). Curlee Holton, professor and head of art and founding director of EPI, is the author of Faith Ringgold: A View from the Studio (2005), which was published in conjunction with Ringgold’s exhibition at the Allentown Art Museum. Holton and Ringgold have worked together on several projects since 1993.
Ringgold has exhibited in major museums in the United States, Europe, South America, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. Her work is in many permanent collections including Studio Museum in Harlem, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, Phoenix Art Museum, National Museum of American Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Allentown Art Museum.
She has written and illustrated more than a dozen children’s books including My Dream of Martin Luther King (1995), If a Bus Could Talk: The Story of Rosa Parks (1999), and Aunt Harriet’s Underground Railroad in the Sky (1992).Her first book, Tar Beach (1992), was a Caldecott Honor Book and winner of the Coretta Scott King Award for Illustration. She has received more than 75 awards, fellowships, citations, and honors including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Fellowship for painting and two National Endowment for the Arts Awards.