All members of the Union community are invited to a campus-wide convocation marking Founders Day Thursday, Feb. 21, at 12:45 p.m. in Memorial Chapel. This event commemorates the 213th anniversary of the granting of the College’s charter from the New York State Board of Regents.
“I hope you will join me in this celebration of Union’s history and rich past. Our strategic plan calls for us to use the past for inspiration. Founders Day provides such an opportunity,” said President Stephen C. Ainlay.
Two distinguished guests will be honored during Founders Day ceremonies.
Paul LeClerc, president and CEO of the New York Public Library and former Union professor of French, will receive the inaugural John Bigelow Medal for contributions to the advancement of humanity. He also will give a keynote address on Bigelow, Union Class of 1835, an author, publisher, lawyer and statesman who was instrumental in the formation of the public library, a New York City landmark.
Schaffer Library is exhibiting selections from Bigelow's personal library, which was donated to the College and is housed in Special Collections.
LeClerc has been with the New York Public Library since 1993. He taught at Union from 1966 through 1979, chairing the Department of Modern Languages from 1971 through 1977. He was president of Hunter College in New York City from 1988 to 1993. He is a scholar of 18th-century French literature and the author or co-editor of five scholarly volumes on writers of the French Enlightenment. His contributions to French culture have earned him numerous honors, including the Order of the Academic Palms (Officier) and the French Legion of Honor (Chevalier). He received an honorary doctor of letters degree from Union in 1997.
Mark C. Litton, an English teacher at Miramonte High School in Orinda, Calif., will receive the Gideon Hawley Teacher Award during the Founders Day ceremonies. Named for the 1809 Union graduate who was New York state’s first superintendent of public education, the Gideon Hawley is presented to a secondary school teacher who has had a continuing influence on the academic life of a Union student. Litton was nominated by Thanh-Mai Bui-Duy ’11.