5-2-08

Dr. Sandra Steingraber, a distinguished ecologist, environmentalist, poet and author, will be the keynote speaker at Lycoming College’s 160th commencement ceremony scheduled for Sunday, May 4, at 1 p.m. on the College’s Quad.

The commencement senior student speaker is Jamie Rowe, a history and Spanish major from Honesdale, Pa., whose speech was chosen by a committee of faculty, staff and students.

The speaker for baccalaureate, scheduled for Saturday, May 3 in Lamade Gymnasium, is Lycoming alumnus the Rev. Thomas V. Wolfe, dean of Hendricks Chapel at Syracuse University.

Steingraber is an internationally-recognized expert on toxins in the environment. Her highly-acclaimed book “Living Downstream: An Ecologist Looks at Cancer and the Environment” won praise from reviewers around the world. Steingraber was named a “MS. Magazine” Woman of the Year, and she won the Will Solimene Award for “excellence in medical communication” from the American Medical Writers Association, and the Altman Award for “the inspiring and poetic use of science to elucidate the causes of cancer.”  “Living Downstream” will be made into a documentary film, with production starting this July in Illinois. 

Steingraber’s second book “Having Faith: An Ecologist’s Journey to Motherhood” explores the alarming extent to which environmental toxins threaten each stage of human fetal development. The book is both a personal memoir of the development of her oldest daughte­­r, Faith, as well as a meticulously documented look at the effects of environmental pollutants on the fetus in the womb. 

She has keynoted conferences and spoken at colleges and universities throughout the United States and Canada. Steingraber has appeared on National Public Radio, “Good Morning America” and “The Today Show.” She is presently a distinguished visiting scholar at Ithaca College in New York.

Steingraber earned a bachelor’s degree from Illinois Wesleyan University, a master’s from Illinois State University and a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.

Wolfe also serves as an adjunct faculty member in Syracuse’s school of education’s higher education administration program. From 1990-98, Wolfe was chaplain for Interdenominational Protestant Campus Ministry at Syracuse. He also served as pastor at Christ United Methodist Church of Locke and Moravia in Moravia, N.Y., and at Forest Home Chapel of the United Methodist Church in Ithaca, N.Y.

Wolfe earned a bachelor’s degree from Lycoming in 1978, a Master of Divinity from Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, Calif., in 1981, and a Ph.D. from Syracuse in 2002.

President James Douthat with the Summa Cum Laude graduates	President James and Emily Douthat with the Senior Class Officers	Baccalaureate speaker Rev. Thomas Wolfe '78
Senior Class Officers enter the Quad	Graduating seniors	Professor Madresehee with College Mace
Lycoming College Choir	Members of the Class of 2008	2008 Commencement
2008 Commencement

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