Middle Tennessee State University alumnus (’71) and former Tennessee Congressman Bart Gordon is receiving an honorary degree and serving as commencement speaker this weekend at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York, the nation’s oldest technological university.
Currently a partner in K&L Gates law firm in Washington, D.C., Gordon will join U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and a stellar group of dignitaries and pioneers being honored by Rensselaer at its 2012 commencement on Saturday, May 26. Rensselaer will honor leaders from each branch of the U.S. government, along with pioneers in thebusiness and academic sectors, at its 206th graduation ceremonies.
Gordon, a longtime Murfreesboro, Tenn., congressman, served in the U.S. House of Representatives for 26 years before retiring in 2010. He was former chairman of the House Committee on Science and Technology and, according to Rensselaer, is “a leader in U.S. science, technology, energy, and health policy, and champion of the America COMPETES Act, which authorizes federal investments in innovation and innovators.”
He plans to speak to students about stepping up to thechallenges of the 21st century, using as an example America’s successful technological race to the moon in 1969 in response to the Sovietlaunch of the Sputnik satellite more than a decade earlier.
Gordon says the world needs “disruptive and transformational technological breakthroughs” to deal with the challenges of a growingpopulation, some of which still lacks access to basic infrastructure.
As chairman of the House Committee on Science and Technology and a senior member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Gordon built bipartisan support for enactment of the America COMPETES Act, helped craft the 21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act, and was a leadingproponent of America’s space program, and of enhancing science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education.
Other Rensselaer honorary degree recipients include Chu, distinguished scientist and 1997 co-recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physics; Scalia, the longest sitting member of the U.S. Supreme Court; artificial intelligence pioneer and renowned computer scientist Dr. Edward A. Feigenbaum; and digital camera inventor and Rensselaer alumnus Steven J. Sasson.
“We are honored to have Secretary Chu join us, and privileged to have each branch of the U.S. government—the Supreme Court, the Administration, and the Congress—as well as the academic and the technology business sectors represented at Rensselaer’s 206th Commencement,” Rensselaer President Shirley Ann Jackson said. “Justice Scalia, Secretary Chu, Congressman Gordon, Dr. Feigenbaum, and Mr. Sasson exemplify that cross-section of government, business, and academic leadership which comes to the fore inresponding to and shaping our changing world.”
Gordon will deliver the commencement address, and each of the honorands will address the graduates at the May 26 ceremony.
“For a boy from Murfreesboro, it’s pretty high cotton to be in there,” Gordon said.
On Friday, May 25, Rensselaer will hold the 10th annual President’s Commencement Colloquy. All of the honorands will participate in a discussion — titled “Honoring Tradition, Responding to a Changing World” — moderated by President Jackson.
