Saint John's Commencement Activities to be Held May 11

COLLEGEVILLE, Minn. -- Ray Suarez, senior correspondent for The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer on PBS, will deliver the commencement address at Saint John's at 2 p.m. Sunday, May 11, in the Saint John's Abbey Church. Also at the commencement ceremony, SJU will present its Pax Christi Award to Dr. John Page, former executive secretary of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy. Linda L. Hoeschler, executive director of the American Composers Forum, will receive an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree, while Suarez will receive an honorary Doctor of Laws degree.

James Mulrooney, a political science major from Inver Grove Heights, Minn., will be the student commencement speaker, as selected by this year's SJU senior class. The 2003 Saint John's graduating class includes 400 undergraduate men and 36 School of Theology Seminary graduates.

Suarez joined The NewsHour in October 1999 as a Washington-based senior correspondent responsible for conducting newsmaker interviews, studio discussion and debates, reporting from the field and serving as a backup anchor. Suarez has 25 years of varied experience in the news business. He came to The NewsHour from National Public Radio where he had been host of the nationwide, call-in news program "Talk of the Nation" since 1993. Prior to that, he spent seven years covering local, national and international stories for the NBC-owned station, WMAQ-TV in Chicago. Suarez wrote the book The Old Neighborhood: What We Lost in the Great Suburban Migration: 1966-1999 and has contributed to several other books and publications.

Suarez also served as a Los Angeles correspondent for CNN, a producer for the ABC Radio Network in New York, a reporter for CBS Radio in Rome and a reporter for various American and British news services in London. He shared in NPR's 1993-94 and 1994-95 duPont-Columbia Silver Baton Awards for on-site coverage of the first all-race elections in South Africa and the first 100 days of the 104th Congress, respectively. He has been honored with the 1996 Ruben Salazar Award, Current History Magazine's 1995 Global Awareness Award and a Chicago Emmy Award.

The Second Vatican Council approved the use of vernacular languages in the liturgy so the faithful could take a full, active and intelligent part in the celebration of the Church's worship. To facilitate that process, the International Commission on English in the Liturgy was founded in October 1963 and was charged with providing the English texts of the liturgical books of the Roman Rite as revised in accord with the decisions and directives of the Second Vatican Council. Page joined the staff of ICEL in 1972. Page was named associate executive secretary of ICEL in 1974 and executive secretary in 1980. He served in that capacity until August 2002.

The Pax Christi Award is the highest honor awarded by Saint John's University and it honors people who have devoted themselves to God by working, in tradition of Benedictine monasticism, to serve others and to build a heritage of faith in the world. Since 1963, 48 people have been presented the Pax Christi Award. Past recipients include former senator and presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy; former Archbishop John Roach of the Minneapolis-St. Paul Archdiocese; Mary Jo Copeland, founder and director of Minneapolis' Sharing and Caring Hands; Amy Grant, a contemporary Christian singer and the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of the Chicago Archdiocese.

Hoeschler has served as executive director of the St. Paul-based American Composers Forum since 1991. The American Composers Forum supports the artistic growth of composers and develops new markets for their music. Hoeschler recently announced her retirement in July 2003. Prior to joining the Forum, Hoeschler worked for 14 years in the corporate sector as vice president of the Dayton Hudson Corp., group vice president of National Computer Systems and president of Landmark Investors, Ltd. From 1976-77, she ran the Minnesota Governor's Commission on the Arts.

Saint John's University for men and the College of Saint Benedict for women are partners in liberal arts education, providing students the opportunity to benefit from the distinctions of not one, but two nationally recognized Catholic, undergraduate colleges. Together, the colleges challenge students to live balanced lives of learning, work, leadership and service in a changing world.