Kevin M. Rampe '88, president of
the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., the agency overseeing the reconstruction
of the site of New York City's World
Trade Center,
will deliver the main address at Union
College's Commencement on Sunday,
June 13, at 10 a.m. in Library
Plaza.
Rampe will receive an honorary
degree from the College. The College will also award an honorary degree to
artist Wolf Kahn, whose intensely colored paintings have put him in the
forefront of American representational art.
“I am proud and honored to
have the opportunity to address Union
College's Class of 2004, their
families and their friends on this very important day,” Rampe said. “Union
College prepared me for my greatest
professional challenge — coordinating the redevelopment of the World
Trade Center
site — and instilled in me a devotion to public service that has driven my
career. I look forward to returning to my alma mater and sharing my experiences
of moving from the classroom to the boardroom.”
Rampe spoke May 11 at a Union alumni
event in the Winter Garden at the World
Financial Center
in lower Manhattan.
As lower Manhattan
rebuilds in the aftermath of the September
11, 2001, terrorist attack, Rampe holds one of the most important
posts – president of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC), which
is overseeing reconstruction. He was named to the post last year by New York
Gov. George Pataki and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg after serving as
the development corporation's executive vice president and general counsel.
Before joining the LMDC, he was first deputy superintendent and chief operating
officer of the New York State Insurance Department, managing the leading
insurance regulatory agency in the country. He had joined the insurance
department after serving as the governor's senior legal advisor on insurance,
banking, civil justice, worker's compensation, and labor matters. A native of Warwick,
New York, he is a cum laude graduate of Union
with a B.A. in political science and psychology. He earned his law degree magna
cum laude from Albany Law
School in 1991 and became a
litigator at the law firm of Sherman
& Sterling. As part of his
practice he was involved in domestic and international securities, antitrust,
and contract litigation. He also lived in Kuwait,
and in 1994-1995 he was involved in the firm's representation of the government
of Kuwait and
its preparation of environmental claims against the government of Iraq
arising after the Gulf War.
About Wolf Kahn
Kahn is one of the United
States' most esteemed painters, one whose
intensely colored and yet meditative landscapes evoke a visceral experience of
color and light. Born in Stuttgart, Germany,
where his father was an orchestra conductor, he fled Nazi Germany as an
eleven-year-old refugee, traveling first to England
and then a year later to the United States.
After graduating from New York City's
High School of Music
and Art, he served in the U.S. Navy and then studied with the well-known
teacher and abstract expressionist, Hans Hofmann. Two years later, Kahn
relocated to Chicago, where he
earned a B.A. from the University of Chicago.
Influenced by Hofmann's practice of using nature as the starting point for a
painting, Kahn's work encompasses both pictorial landscape and painterly
abstraction. His use of color has made him one of the most highly regarded
colorists working in America
today.
He has received Fulbright and Guggenheim fellowships and an Award in Art
from the American Academy
and Institute for Arts and Letters. His work has been exhibited in galleries
and museums throughout the world and is included in the collections of such
major museums as the Museum of Modern
Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New
York. Kahn has taught in many art schools, including
Cooper Union in New York, and is
the subject of a number of books.
For more information on
Commencement, please visit: http://www.union.edu/Commencement/2004/
If you thought it was easy planning Commencement, check out the plans for the ceremony at http://cs.union.edu/grad/
Prepared by Prof. Lance Spallholz, a member of the Commencement Committee, the site gives details about marching to and from the ceremony (depending on weather), where everyone sits and where families and grads can meet afterward.