Knox in the News

From the Register-Mail:

Knox College will present a lecture Oct. 1 looking at the causes of the current recession and the changes that are likely and needed to prevent a recurrence. Entitled “The Great Recession - Two Perspectives” will feature two executives.

The speakers — William A. Longbrake, retired vice chairman of Washington Mutual Bank, and, John Lawler, controller, U.S. Marketing and Sales, Ford Motor Company — will share their personal experiences at two large national corporations that have seen the recession play out in very different ways.

Washington Mutual was one of the first banks, and the largest, to fail during the crisis, eventually merging into JP Morgan Chase. Ford Motor Company was the only U.S.-based automotive manufacturer to avoid bankruptcy during the recent financial crisis.

Longbrake and Lawler are members of Knox’s Business Advisory Council, which advises the college’s business and management program.

From the Register-Mail:

A member of President Obama’s White House staff will deliver the address at Knox College’s opening convocation Thursday.

Tina M. Tchen, director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, will join Knox College in formally opening the 2009-2010 academic year. Tchen, a Chicago lawyer before her appointment to Obama’s staff, heads the office previously known as the Office of Public Liaison. The Office of Public Engagement coordinates White House events, arranging public speaking engagements for the president, vice president and White House staff, and seeks public opinion on issues.

From WGIL radio:

U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, dropped a surprise statement in comments to the media following his commencement day address to the students of Knox College.

Fitzgerald is most recently known for his handing down federal indictment charges against now former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich for allegedly plotting to sell an appointment to the U.S. Senate seat vacated by current President Barack Obama.

In meeting the press after his speech where he stressed service and sacrifice to students, said he wasn’t a big television watcher and is not currently watching Patti Blagojevich on the NBC reality show “I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here”.

2009 marked the fifth year in a row a commencement speaker from the headlines accepted the invitation to give the graduation address to students and he tells WGIL the Knox graduation reminded him of his college days at Amhurst College in New York.

“I don’t go to too many graduations,” Fitzgerald said. “I went to a small liberal arts college, and it was a beautiful campus. And, I was struck, growing up in Brooklyn, when I went out to what was, to me, very rural Massachusetts, and the beauty of it and very nice people. My sense of the last 24 hours, being here, and taking to students and faculty, (Knox College) is a collegial place. People really believe in this institution.”

From WGIL radio:

A graduating senior says he had never even heard of Knox College when he got a letter in the mail from the school saying they were interested in him attending over four years ago.

Sean Bullock was the senior class speaker at the Knox commencement on Saturday and he says pressure from his mom was the reason he completed the application. Bullock says he had never heard of Knox, didn’t want to leave his Virginia home to come to Illinois, and quite frankly wasn’t even a fan of the color purple.

Bullock says those attitudes changed once he began to develop relationships with friends who had the same interests. Before his friendships developed, Bullock told the students and their families at the graduation, he asked a Knox student many questions before accepting to come to Galesburg, including one answer he says he’ll never forget.

From the Daily Herald:

By Chuck Goudie, Daily Herald columnist and ABC 7 News (Chicago) investigative reporter

When you have gone mano-a-mano with the Gambino crime family, slogged through the wreckage of an embassy bombing, pursued Osama bin Laden and Scooter Libby and strung up two Illinois governors, what’s a little precip?

“Timing is everything,” said Patrick Fitzgerald, the seemingly fearless federal prosecutor, as the rain began to fall Saturday on his commencement speech at Knox College in Galesburg, northwest of Peoria.

“I’m truly honored and humbled to be able to speak to you today and to receive a degree I didn’t earn, but I will certainly treasure,” Fitzgerald said, standing in the rain, after the graduates made the first good decision of their post-college lives: To get wet so they could hear what he had to say.

When a United States Attorney comes to speak at a college graduation, there usually aren’t protests as there were a few weeks ago when a United States President showed up at Notre Dame.

Then again, Pat Fitzgerald was just there to talk about public service.

As he spoke under a darkened sky, the lanky lawman noted that another proceeding was underway about 300 miles away in Chicago: The funeral for a fallen Chicago policeman, shot down in the line of duty.

What Fitzgerald then had to say about the role of police and prosecutors in stopping all the shootings and murders, the corruption and organized crime, was surprising.

From The Associated Press. Appears in KWQC TV-6 (Davenport, IA); Chicago Tribune:

This year’s commencement speaker at Knox College was U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the top federal prosecutor in Chicago.

Fitzgerald, who has played a role in the downfall of a number of major Illinois political figures, including former governors George Ryan and Rod Blagojevich, encouraged Saturday’s graduates to follow his path by committing themselves to public service, calling it a luxury, rather than a sacrifice.

Fitzgerald was presented with an honorary degree by professor Lane Sunderland, who described him as “Elliot Ness with a Harvard degree and a sense of humor.”

The Galesburg school likes to have newsmakers speak to the graduates.

Previous speakers include former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright (2008), former President Bill Clinton (2007), TV funnyman Stephen Colbert (2006) and then U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (2005).