Dominican University Winter Commencement to recognize graduates

Dominican University will hold a mid-year commencement exercise for undergraduate and graduate students on Saturday, January 14 at 1:00 p.m. in Lund Auditorium, 7900 W. Division Street, River Forest. John Rowe, chairman and CEO of Exelon Corporation, will present the commencement address. Rowe and Dr. Eboo Patel, Dominican’s Lund-Gill Chair for 2011 and founder of the Interfaith Youth Core, will receive honorary doctorates. More than 240 students will receive bachelor’s and master’s degrees.

Recognized widely for both his corporate and philanthropic leadership, Rowe’s firm belief that upholding the highest ethical standards is essential to corporate profitability has led the company to be honored for excellence in environmental stewardship, diversity leadership, community service and philanthropy. Under his guidance, Exelon has flourished, providing electric and natural gas utilities to nearly 6 million U.S. customers. The company has been consistently ranked as the country’s top electric utility by publications including Forbes and Fortune and has received awards from the U.S. Green Building Council, the United Way, Human Rights Campaign and the City of Chicago for its social responsibility programs.

Through the Rowe Family Charitable Trust, he and his wife, Jeanne, and son, William, have supported numerous educational causes at universities and cultural institutions, including endowing the Field Museum of Natural History and Dominican’s Brennan School of Business The trust co-founded the Rowe-Clark Math and Science Academy, a campus of the Noble Network of Charter Schools that serves nearly 600 low-income high school students with emphasis on college preparation and achievement in science and mathematics.

An advocate for clean energy, civic engagement and educational equality, Rowe is chairman of New Schools for Chicago and has served as chairman of the Chicago Historical Society and member of the boards of the Chicago Urban League, the Field Museum and the Edison Electric Institute. An alumnus of the University of Wisconsin and its law school, he is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and has received numerous accolades for his philanthropic efforts, including the Illinois Holocaust Museum’s Humanitarian award, Chicago Council on Global Affairs Global Leadership Award and Misericordia Heart of Mercy Award.

Since incorporating the Interfaith Youth Core in 2002, Eboo Patel has led the organization’s partnership with more than 200 colleges and universities in the United States as well as five continents, involving thousands of students in workshops on religious tolerance and community service projects addressing homelessness, hunger and education.

The author of the acclaimed Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation, which is required reading on 11 college campuses, Patel is a frequent contributor to the Washington Post, USA Today, Huffington Post and CNN. He was appointed by President Barack Obama to the advisory council of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships and serves on the Religious Advisory Committee of the Council of Foreign Relations and the board of directors of the Chicago Council of Global Affairs.

In 2009 Patel was named by US News & World Report as one of America’s Best Leaders and was chosen by Harvard’s Kennedy School Review as one of five future policy leaders to watch. He was also named by Islamica Magazine as one of 10 young Muslim visionaries shaping Islam in America. He recently received the prestigious Guru Nanak Interfaith Prize from Hofstra University, an honor previously bestowed on His Holiness the 14h Dalai Lama of Tibet.

Patel holds a doctorate in sociology of religion from Oxford University, where he studied on a Rhodes scholarship.

Founded in 1901, Dominican University is a comprehensive, coeducational Catholic institution offering bachelor’s degrees through the Rosary College of Arts and Sciences and master’s degrees through the Graduate School of Library and Information Science, the Brennan School of Business, the School of Education, the Graduate School of Social Work, and the School of Continuing Studies. The university also offers a doctoral degree in library and information science. In the 2012 issue of America’s Best Colleges, U.S. News & World Report ranked Dominican University in the top 20 of Midwest master’s level universities. The magazine also ranked Dominican as one of three “Great Schools at a Great Price” in Illinois.