Peggy Noonan, an author who penned speeches for Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, will address the 2008 University of Portland commencement exercises, set for 2 p.m. Sunday, May 4 at university’s sports dome.
Noonan will be awarded an honorary doctorate during the ceremony, in which Holy Cross Father William Beauchamp, UP president, will confer an anticipated 579 bachelor’s and 111 master’s degrees.
Noonan, who broke into television journalism in her 20s, became famous as a White House speechwriter. She coined such memorable phrases as “a thousand points of light,” “read my lips,” and “kinder, gentler nation.”
Since her years in the White House, Noonan has written a column for The Wall Street Journal and served as consultant for the television show “The West Wing.” She has written seven books.
Peter Tannock, vice chancellor of Notre Dame University in Australia since 1993, will receive the Christus Magister Medal, the university’s highest honor. Tannock is considered the architect of modern Catholic higher education in his native Australia.
He has been chairman of the Australian National Catholic Education Commission, chairman of the Australian Schools Commission, director of Catholic education in the state of Western Australia and professor and dean of education at the University of Western Australia.
Educated by the Christian Brothers and the Jesuits as a young man, Tannock started teaching at the University of Western Australia just as Catholic education in Australia hit a crisis.
With vocations plummeting and financial travails looming for Catholic schools at every level, Tannock, still in his 20s, helped start the Catholic Education Commission of Western Australia in 1971.
Tannock also helped create Notre Dame University of Australia, which began with his dream of the first Catholic teachers’ college in the western half of the country. Notre Dame — not affiliated with the University of Portland’s sister school on Indiana — now has bustling campuses in three cities and is opening medical and law schools. University of Portland students travel there for a popular Australian study-abroad program.
Notre Dame Australia also recently bestowed an honorary doctorate on Father Beauchamp.
Honorary doctorates from the University also will be awarded to Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who recently retired as archbishop of Washington, D.C.; Edward Leavy, U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals judge and a 1950 alumnus; Janeen McAninich, president and chief operating and financial officer for Becker Capital Management; Eugene Wizer, developer and president and owner of two grocery stores in Lake Oswego; and Roy Heynderickx, vice president for finance at University of San Diego and longtime UP financial chief.
