SU Hosts Annual Spring Honors Convocation Friday, May 6

SALISBURY, MD---The highlight of the academic year, the spring Honors Convocation on Friday, May 6, features an address by President Janet Dudley-Eshbach on the meaning of honors and the recognition of a new program, the Presidential Citizen Scholar.  The colorful ritual, with the traditional procession of faculty in full regalia, the pomp and circumstance of the University mace and flag, the Alma Mater and University Chorale, begins at 3:30 p.m. in Holloway Hall Auditorium.  This gala celebration of student achievement with awards, scholarships and other academic honors concludes with a reception on the Fulton Hall lawn. Dudley-Eshbach is no stranger to academic honors.  She was elected to Phi Beta Kappa in 1974 and to Phi Delta Kappa in 1994.  During her tenure at SU, she has developed “the Salisbury Promise,” an integrity pledge for all incoming students.  She is also champion of the Presidential Citizen Scholar Program.  Launched last fall through SU’s Institute for Public Affairs and Civic Engagement, the program instructs a select group of students ch osen from all academic disciplines in the habits of citizenship and prepares them for future civic leadership by immersing them in curricular, campus culture and community practices during a year-long experience. Complementing her interest in community service  is a strong commitment to internationalization.  She was a member of West Virginia Senator Jay Rockefeller’s 1997 Project Harvest II Trade Mission to Taiwan and Japan.  In addition, she was invited to participate in the 1998 Oxford International Round Table on Educational Policy at Oxford University.  She is fluent in Spanish and has traveled extensively throughout Latin America, often leading student groups. Completing her undergraduate degree in Spanish and Latin American studies at Indiana University, Dudley-Eshbach earned her doctorate in Hispanic literature at El Colegio De Mexico in Mexico City.  In 1980 she undertook post-doctoral study in Chile on a Fulbright-Hays Grant. Salisbury’s first woman president, she also was the first woman to lead a four-yea r public institution of higher education in West Virginia.  She was recognized by Change magazine as a “Young Leader of the Academy”  in 1998 and was awarded the 1999 Elizabeth Dole Shattered Glass Award.  In 2005 she was named one of Maryland’s Top 100 Women by the Daily Record, a statewide business journal. For more information call 410-543-6030 or visit the SU Web site at www.salisbury.edu.