Knox in the News

From WGIL.com:
Outgoing Knox College president Roger Taylor has made a promise once he retires at the end of the month.

Knox graduates around 250 students Saturday during morning ceremonies on the lawn behind Old Main.

From Swampland: By Michael Grunwald

Jared Bernstein, the most prominent Manhattan School of Music alumnus on the White House economic team, has left his job as Vice President Biden’s chief economist… Before he left, we exchanged e-mails about the economy, liberal complaints about the President…

Q: You came from the progressive movement, and you’re returning to the progressive movement; a lot of your progressive allies feel let down by the Obama administration. What do you say to them?

A: Very, very simple. I’d tell them to go read [President] Obama’s 2005 commencement speech at Knox College and compare that with his speech at GW a few weeks ago on fiscal issues… the President’s essential vision of a government that helps to foster private sector innovation, that temporarily intervenes when needed to at least partially offset market failures… that to me is a progressive vision, and it’s one that Obama has consistently stood for…

From The Huffington Post:
We live in an age of what historian Thomas Frank calls instant forgetting. It’s not just that we forget things — it’s that we seem to replace the past with inexplicable fictions…

That renewal casts a pall on this era. For as fruitful as President Obama’s Administration has been, it would be hard to argue that his legislative triumphs have been accompanied by a renascence of public progressivism. Somehow the old, tired mantras of a bankrupt ideology — smaller government, deregulation, tax cuts above all — have carried the day in our discourse. Americans, it would seem, have already forgotten what got us in this mess in the first place…

It’s an ironic failure. Barack Obama may have rocketed to political stardom with his speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, but it was another address — one devoted to a retelling of history — that made many progressives sit up and take notice at the beginning of his national career. On June 4, 2005, then-Senator Obama delivered the commencement address at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. It was a masterpiece of a speech, and it offers now what it offered then: a tantalizing glimpse of an Obama presidency that could tell a good story about progressivism.

From The Register-Mail:
Majora Carter, a nationally known eco-entrepreneur and MacArthur “genius” Fellow, will deliver the Commencement address at Knox College on June 4.

As is the custom at Knox, Carter was nominated by the graduating class. Following a long-standing tradition, Knox College will award Carter an honorary degree.

“Majora Carter was a clear favorite with the senior class,” said Tomi Olotu, treasurer of the senior class. “She is a pioneer in helping us understand how environmentally sustainable activity, economic development, neighborhood development, and even our own health are all interconnected. I’m looking forward to hearing her speak.”

Recent Knox College Commencement speakers have included Stephen Colbert, Barack Obama, William Jefferson Clinton, and Madeleine Albright. The 2010 Commencement speaker was Tina Tchen, who at the time was Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement. Tchen now serves as chief of staff to first lady Michelle Obama.

Carter runs her own consulting firm, Majora Carter Group, L.L.C., and hosts “The Promised Land,” a public radio series that spotlights people who are transforming communities. Carter advises businesses, governments, universities, foundations and other organizations on strategies for climate adaptation, urban micro-agribusiness and leadership development.

From the Register-Mail:

The heavens opened over Knox College on Saturday but nothing could dampen the spirit of the Class of 2010 who gathered to celebrate their graduation.

Hundreds of students, parents, family, friends and faculty gathered inside the T. Fleming Fieldhouse at Knox on a day soaked in rain and emotion.

College staff made the decision to move the ceremony indoors to the fieldhouse early Saturday, instead of the traditional location on the lawn adjacent to Old Main.

Tina Tchen, director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, made the commencement address at the 165th Knox College Commencement.

Tchen poked some fun at herself when she joked that her presence may have been a letdown for the Class of 2010, given that recent commencement speakers have included President Barack Obama, former President Bill Clinton, comedian Stephen Colbert and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

“I confess I have the same sense of bewilderment as you,” the rookie commencement speaker said.

A distinguished lawyer before being taking up her position in President Obama’s administration, Tchen spoke to the audience of the difficulty of change, as witnessed through her new job, on a day when the graduating class was preparing to embark on a big shift in their lives.

“No matter how much we want it or how many people voted for it, change is hard,” she said. “Change takes us out of our comfort zone but that’s the essence of change.”

Despite the difficulty of change, she urged the Class of 2010 to strive for it.

From WGIL radio:

A prominent attorney who is now part of President Barack Obama’s administration told Knox College graduates they are inheriting a nation that’s changing.

Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, Tina Tchen, was the speaker at the college’s commencement Saturday. The ceremony, at the T. Fleming Fieldhouse, was moved inside for only the third time in the past 30 years because of rainy weather.

Knox College awarded 343 diplomas to graduates from 25 different states and 18 different countries. Tchen, an attorney in Chicago and a women’s activist when she was selected to serve in her current role, received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Knox.

Tchen told the graduates they are now in a position to change, and change is not easy - it’s hard on a personal level as she found out when she left her job after three decades in Chicago - a city she loves, for a new challenge that’s been very rewarding.

“Change takes you out of your comfort zone, but that’s the essence of change,” Tchen said. “If you aren’t challenged, if you aren’t nervous, if you aren’t even scared, then you’re not changing enough. And if you aren’t changing, you aren’t growing. W.E.B. DuBois said you must be ready at any moment to give up what you are for what you might become.”