Paul A. Volcker, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve who recently was picked by President Barack Obama to lead a new economic advisory panel, will be the featured speaker at Commencement, College officials announced today.
Approximately 500 students in the Class of 2009 will receive their degrees during the ceremony, scheduled for 10 a.m. Sunday, June 14, on Hull Plaza.
In choosing Volcker to help the new administration deal with the ongoing financial crisis, Obama described him as “one of the world’s foremost economic policy experts” with a “long and distinguished record of service to our nation.”
Volcker, 81, will receive an honorary doctor of laws degree from Union.
“We are extremely fortunate and honored to have someone of Paul Volcker’s stature as our Commencement speaker,” said President Stephen C. Ainlay. “His remarkable achievements and work as a tireless public servant will serve as an inspiration to our new graduates.”
Volcker was appointed chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System by President Jimmy Carter in 1979 and reappointed in 1983 by President Ronald Reagan, serving until 1987. He is widely credited with reining in high inflation in the 1980s with a series of courageous, if sometimes unpopular tactics, including raising interest rates.
After leaving the Fed, Volcker was chairman of Wolfensohn and Co., retiring in 1996 when the firm merged with Bankers Trust. From 1996 to 1999, he headed a committee formed to determine existing dormant accounts and other assets in Swiss banks of victims of Nazi persecution. From 2000 to 2005, Volcker served as chairman of the board of trustees of the International Accounting Standards Committee, overseeing a renewed effort to develop consistent, high-quality accounting standards acceptable in all countries. In 2003, he headed a private Commission on the Public Service, which recommended sweeping overhauls of the organization and personnel practices of the federal government.
In 2004, Volcker was asked by United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan to chair the Independent Inquiry into the United Nations Oil for Food Program. In 2007, he was asked by the president of the World Bank to chair a panel of experts to review the operations of the Department of Institutional Integrity.
Educated at Princeton, Harvard and the London School of Economics, Volcker is professor emeritus of International Economic Policy at Princeton. He was the first Henry Kaufman Visiting Professor at the Stern School of Business at New York University.
This year will mark the College’s 215th Commencement.