Founder of Teach For America will speak at Marquette’s commencement

Wendy Kopp, founder and chief executive of Teach For America, will be the speaker for Marquette University’s spring 2010 commencement ceremony on Sunday, May 23. The ceremony will take place at the Bradley Center, 1001 N. 4th St., at 9:30 a.m.

Kopp proposed the creation of Teach For America in her undergraduate senior thesis at Princeton University in 1989 and has spent the last 20 years working to sustain and grow the organization. Today, 7,300 corps members are teaching in 35 urban and rural regions across the country while 17,000 Teach For America alumni continue working from inside and outside the field of education for the fundamental changes necessary to ensure educational excellence and equity.

Teach For America expanded to Milwaukee this year, with a cohort of 38 teachers. Marquette is one of two local universities providing coursework for the corps members that will enable them to earn a master’s degree in education and complete Wisconsin’s teacher licensure requirements in two years.  

“The selection of Wendy Kopp as our 2010 commencement speaker draws attention to our yearlong Celebration of the Centennial of Women at Marquette, marking the historic decision to admit women to the university, and to our ongoing mission to provide access to education for the underserved,” said Marquette President Robert A. Wild, S.J. “We share her commitment to address injustice and to improve the lives of young people by providing qualified, committed teachers.”

Kopp is the author of One Day, All Children: The Unlikely Triumph of Teach For America and What I Learned Along the Way and has received numerous honors for her foresight, leadership and commitment, including the Harold W. McGraw, Jr., Prize in 2006, the John F. Kennedy New Frontier Award in 2004, the Clinton Center Award for Leadership and National Service in 2003 and Child’s Magazine Children’s Champion Award in 2003.

As part of the commencement ceremony, Kopp will receive an honorary degree from Marquette, along with three others:

Joan Biskupic, Supreme Court correspondent for USA Today, and author of American Original: The Life and Constitution of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, Sandra Day O'Connor: How the First Woman on the Supreme Court Became Its Most Influential Justice and several other books on the Supreme Court.

Anne M. Burke, Illinois Supreme Court Justice and founder of the Chicago Special Olympics, a precursor to the international Special Olympics, Inc.

Janice McLaughlin, M.M., president of the Maryknoll Sisters and author of Ostriches, Dung Beetles and Other Spiritual Masters: A book of Wisdom from the Wild, based on her experiences in Africa, and On the Frontline - Catholic Missions and Zimbabwe’s Liberation War.

Both Biskupic and McLaughlin are Marquette alumnae.