University of Pittsburgh to Hold 26th Honors Convocation Feb. 28, Celebrate 215th Anniversary

February 25, 2002

Pitt Alumnus Gerald Stern, New Jersey poet laureate, to deliver keynote

Nine new Pitt "Legacy Laureates" to be honored

PITTSBURGH—University of Pittsburgh Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg will preside over Pitt's 26th Honors Convocation at 3 p.m. Thursday in the Carnegie Music Hall, 4400 Forbes Ave. The event will have added significance this year because it also will celebrate the 215th anniversary of the University's founding.

The keynote speaker will be Gerald Stern, University of Pittsburgh alumnus, first poet laureate of New Jersey, and recipient of a National Book Award. Prior to his address, Stern will have the honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree conferred upon him by Chancellor Nordenberg.

The convocation also will include recognition of nine new Legacy Laureates— University of Pittsburgh alumni who have excelled personally and professionally. The Legacy Laureate program was launched in 2000.

Born in Pittsburgh in 1925 to immigrant parents, Stern has spent his life as both poet and teacher, and his work often is compared to that of Walt Whitman.

Stern's books of poetry include "Last Blue: Poems" (2000); "This Time: New and Selected Poems" (1998), which won the National Book Award; "Odd Mercy" (1995); "Bread Without Sugar" (1992), winner of the Paterson Poetry Prize; "Leaving Another Kingdom: Selected Poems" (1990); Two Long Poems (1990); "Lovesick" (1987); "Paradise Poems" (1984); "The Red Coal" (1981), which received the Melville Caine Award from the Poetry Society of America; "Lucky Life", the 1977 Lamont Poetry Selection of The Academy of American Poets, which also was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award; and "Rejoicings" (1973), his first volume, which was published when Stern was 48.

Stern has received the Paris Review's Bernard F. Conners Award, the Ruth Lilly Prize, four National Endowment for the Arts grants (one as a Master Poet for his home state of Pennsylvania), the Pennsylvania Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts, the Jerome J. Shestack Poetry Prize from American Poetry Review, and fellowships from the Academy of American Poets, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.

Stern received the B.A. degree in political science from the University of Pittsburgh in 1947 and the M.A. degree in English literature from Columbia University in 1949. He has taught at many universities, including the University of Pittsburgh, Columbia, New York University, and—as a tenured faculty member until his retirement in 1995—the Iowa Writers' Workshop.

The Honors Convocation allows the University annually to recognize undergraduate, graduate, and professional academic achievement; student leadership; and faculty accomplishments.

The Pitt alumni to be recognized at the Honors Convocation as Legacy Laureates are:

• Steven C. Beering, M.D. (MED '58 & CAS '54 B.S.), president emeritus of Purdue University, whose term as president ran from 1983 to 2000. Prior to his presidency at Purdue University and the Purdue University Research Foundation, Beering served as chief executive officer at the Indiana University Medical Center and as dean of the Indiana University School of Medicine. Beering also was director of the Indiana statewide medical education system. Currently, Beering serves as a University of Pittsburgh trustee and is a member of the Pitt Board of Trustees' institutional advancement committee. He was Pitt's commencement speaker in 1999.

• William A. Sollecito (GSPH '70 M.S.HYG–Biostatistics), a biostatistics research professor and director of the Public Health Leadership Program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Sollecito went to the University of North Carolina in 1997 from Quintiles Transnational Corporation, one of the world's largest contract research organizations, where he was president of Quintiles Americas, responsible for all clinical operations in the United States, Canada, and South America. His primary areas of interest include continuous quality improvement, project management, and leadership in public health and clinical research. Sollecito received his Dr.P.H. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1982.

• Samuel D. Colella (BUS '62 B.B.A.), managing director and cofounder of Versant Ventures, the premiere venture capital firm specializing in the health care industry. Prior to founding Versant Ventures, he was for more than 17 years general partner with Institutional Venture Partners (IVP). In 1985, Colella established IVP's Life Science Group, the first such focused group within a venture firm. He also served as president of Spectra-Physics, the world's leading laser supplier, and was a senior manager of the Technical Products Division of Corning Glass. He is a director for DoubleTwist, Inc., Argonaut Technologies, Inc., and Symyx Technologies, Inc., and is chair of Syrrx, Inc. He received his M.B.A. degree from Stanford University in 1971.

• Christopher V. Dodds (KGSB '83 M.B.A.), executive vice president and CFO of the Charles Schwab Corporation and member of its executive committee. Dodds is responsible at Charles Schwab for financial planning and analysis, taxation, corporate accounting, external and regulatory reporting, mergers and acquisitions, investor relations, and risk management. He has been Schwab's CFO since 1999 and executive vice president since 1998. He was Schwab's corporate controller from 1997 to 1999 and its corporate treasurer from 1993 to 1997. Prior to joining Schwab in 1986, Dodds served in the treasury departments of Gulf Oil and Exxon. He holds an undergraduate degree from Clemson University, where he received a full basketball scholarship.

• John P. Curran (PHARM '71 Ph.D. & '68 M.S.), the principal of Curran Capital Management, which he founded in 1986. Before graduating from the University of Pittsburgh, Curran went to work for Pfizer, Inc., in New York City, where he completed his Pitt Ph.D. dissertation. Curran eventually became a Wall Street securities analyst, specializing in pharmaceutical companies. He received his bachelor's degree in pharmacy from Fordham University.

• C. Scott Harrison, M.D. (MED '63 & CAS '59 B.A.), cofounder, CEO, and chair of CURE International, a nonprofit spiritual and medical ministry to physically handicapped children in the developing world, established in 1996. In 1976, Harrison was a founding partner of Rehab Hospital Services Corporation, the first chain of for-profit rehabilitation hospitals in the United States. In 1991, he gave up a distinguished orthopaedic surgical practice to become president and CEO of Kirschner Medical Corporation, saving the well-known maker of orthopaedic devices from bankruptcy. In 1994, Kirschner Medical merged with Biomet, Inc., where Harrison continues to serve as a board member. In 1998, CURE opened the Bethany Children's Center of Kenya, the first hospital of its kind in Africa. In 2000, CURE opened two additional hospitals, one in Tanzania and one in Uganda. Construction is under way for similar facilities in the Dominican Republic and Malawi. In 1999, Harrison was honored with the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons' first AAOS International Humanitarian Award.

• Henry J. Mankin, M.D. (MED '53 & CAS '52 B.S.), the Edith M. Ashley Professor of Orthopaedics at Harvard Medical School and chief of orthopaedic oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital. Mankin founded the Orthopaedic Oncology Program at Massachusetts General Hospital in 1972. In addition to orthopaedic oncology, Mankin's clinical interests include metabolic bone disease, cartilage, arthritis, and Gaucher Disease. In 1990, he won the Bristol-Myers Squibb/Zimmer Award for Distinguished Achievement in Orthopaedic Research for his pioneering work in improving the diagnosis of bone cancer, improving the results of bone transplants, and perfecting techniques for freezing human donor bones for transplantation.

• Bibiana Boerio (KGSB '76 M.B.A.), executive vice president and CFO for Ford Financial. Previously, Boerio was the financial director of Jaguar Cars, Ltd., in Coventry, England. Boerio joined Ford Motor Company in 1976 and has held a number of finance positions there in corporate finance, product development, the glass division, and in the general auditor's office. She served as the regional marketing manager for the Ford Division in the northeast U.S. and was an assistant controller for Ford Financial from 1988 to 1991. Boerio earned a bachelor's degree in retailing from Seton Hill College in 1975, where she was recognized as a Distinguished Alumna. She was awarded the Katz Graduate School of Business' Distinguished Alumni Award in 2000.

• Cecile M. Springer (GSPIA '71 M.U.R.P.), former director of contributions and community affairs at Westinghouse Electric Corporation, where she worked from 1974 to 1989. She also was president of the Westinghouse Foundation and chair of the Steering Committee for Minority Communications at Westinghouse. After leaving the company in 1989, she founded Springer Associates, a consulting firm that specializes in corporate and philanthropic programs and institutional development. Springer was president of the University of Pittsburgh's Alumni Association from 1991 to 1992 and received Pitt's Distinguished Alumni Award in 1986.

The Honors Convocation allows the University of Pittsburgh annually to recognize undergraduate, graduate, and professional academic achievement; student leadership; and faculty accomplishments.

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