Joyce M. Davis (2018)Joyce M. Davis is a veteran journalist, author, and communications professional who has worked around the globe for some of the most respected news organizations in the world. She lives in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where she is the founding president and chief executive officer of the World Affairs Council of Harrisburg and director of communications for the City of Harrisburg. |
Dr. Michael Sorrell (2017)Michael J. Sorrell is the 34th President of Paul Quinn College. Under his leadership, the school has become one of the most innovative small colleges in America and is rapidly becoming a model for urban higher education by focusing on academic rigor, experiential learning, and entrepreneurship. |
Michael Rawlings (2016)Michael Scott Rawlings is an American businessman and politician who is the 61st Mayor of Dallas. A member of the Democratic Party, he won the 2011 Dallas mayoral election defeating former Dallas Police Chief David Kunkle. |
Wallace B. Jefferson (2015)Wallace Bernard Jefferson is the former chief justice of the Supreme Court of Texas, who served from 2004 until October 1, 2013. In October 2013, he joined the law firm, Alexander Dubose Jefferson Townsend LLP, as a name partner. |
Ron Burton (2014)Ron D. Burton served as President of Rotary International from July 1, 2013, through spring 2019. A longtime member of the Rotary Club of Norman, Oklahoma, he retired as president of the University of Oklahoma Foundation Inc. in 2007, having worked for the university organization for nearly 30 years. Holding degrees in accounting and in law from University of Oklahoma, he is a member of the U.S. Supreme Court Bar, the Oklahoma Bar Association, and the Cleveland County Bar Association. |
Carolyn Hessler-Radelet (2013)Carolyn Hessler-Radelet was the 19th Director of the Peace Corps. She was the Deputy Director and Chief Operating Officer of the Peace Corps from April 2010 to December 2015, serving as Acting Peace Corps Director from September 2012 until June 2014 when she was elevated to Director. |
Commander Stan Fornea (2012)The Rev. Stan Fornea, a U.S. Navy chaplain since 1996, is the first chaplain appointed to the White House Military Office. A former pastor at First Baptist Church of Sherman, Fornea served under President Barack Obama and President George W. Bush. |
Drayton McLane Jr. (2011)Drayton McLane, Jr. is an American entrepreneur. He is chairman of the McLane Group, a holding company with a portfolio of various diverse enterprises, and was, from 1993 until 2011, the chairman and CEO of the Major League Baseball’s Houston Astros.
|
Kern Wildenthal (2010)Kern Wildenthal is president of the Children’s Medical Center Foundation in Dallas, Texas. He also holds honorary appointments as President Emeritus and Professor of Medicine Emeritus at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, where he served as president from 1986-2008.
|
Oscar Page (2009)Oscar Page served as President of Austin College from 1994 to 2009. Before becoming President of Austin College, he was President of Austin Peay State University in Tennessee for six years. He has served as President of the Association of Texas Colleges and Universities of Texas and as Board Chair of the Independent Colleges and Universities of Texas.
|
Antonio Garza (2008)Antonio Oscar “Tony” Garza, Jr. is an American lawyer who was the United States Ambassador to Mexico from 2002 to 2009. In recognition of his work, Mexico bestowed on him the Águila Azteca, the highest award granted to foreigners, in 2009. |
Robert McTeer (2007)Robert D. McTeer is an American economist, and has been a fellow at the US National Center for Policy Analysis since January 2007. McTeer is a former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, and a former chancellor of the Texas A&M University System.
|
Ron Kirk (2006)Ronald Kirk is an American politician and member of the Democratic Party. From 1994 to 1995, Kirk worked as the Secretary of State of Texas, until he was elected as the Mayor of Dallas, where he served from 1995 to 2002 and was the first African-American to hold either of those positions. Kirk worked as a partner at the Houston-based law firm Vinson & Elkins and worked as a lobbyist for Energy Future Holdings and Merrill Lynch. He was nominated by President Barack Obama to serve as U.S. Trade Representative and on March 18, 2009, and was confirmed by the U.S. Senate. |
Robert Ballard (2005)Robert Ballard is a retired United States Navy officer and a professor of oceanography at the University of Rhode Island, most noted for his work in underwater archaeology: maritime archaeology and archaeology of shipwrecks. He is most known for the discoveries of the wrecks of the RMS Titanic in 1985, the battleship Bismarck in 1989, and the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown in 1998. He discovered the wreck of John F. Kennedy’s PT-109 in 2002 and visited Biuku Gasa and Eroni Kumana, who saved its crew. He leads ocean exploration on E/V Nautilus. |
Mary Robinson (2004)Mary Robinson served as the seventh, and first female, President of Ireland from December 1990 to September 1997, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 1997 to 2002. |
Robin Roberts (2003)Robin Roberts is an American television broadcaster. Roberts was a sportscaster on ESPN for 15 years (1990–2005). She became co-anchor on Good Morning America in 2005. |
Henry Winkler (2002)Henry Winkler has appeared on both the big screen and the TV screen, on stage, and behind the camera. Perhaps to many of living in the 1970’s and ‘80s, he will forever be remembered first as the leather-jacket wearing, motorcycle-riding Arthur Fonzarelli, AKA, “The Fonz.” Winkler, however, went on to produce television shows, direct several movies, and act on stage and in several additional roles. |
Maya Angelou (2001)Maya Angelou was an American poet, memoirist, and civil rights activist. She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, and was credited with a list of plays, movies, and television shows spanning over 50 years. |
James R. Sasser (2000)James Ralph Sasser is an American politician, diplomat, and attorney. A Democrat, Sasser served three terms as a United States Senator from Tennessee and was Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. |
George W. Bush (1999)George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States from 2001 to 2009. He was also the 46th Governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000. |
Barbara Bush (1998)Barbara Bush was the wife of George H. W. Bush, the 41st President of the United States, and served as First Lady of the United States from 1989 to 1993. |
Dr. Óscar Arias Sánchez (1997)Óscar Arias Sánchez was President of Costa Rica from 1986 to 1990 and from 2006 to 2010. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987 for his efforts to end the Central American crisis. |
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (1996)Kay Bailey Hutchison is an American lawyer, businesswoman, politician, and diplomat. She served as a United States Senator from Texas from 1993 to 2013. She is a member of the Republican Party. |
Dr. Michael De Bakey (1995)Michael Ellis DeBakey (1908-2008) is recognized internationally as a cardiovascular surgical pioneer. Foremost a surgeon, he also was an inventor, a scholar, and a medical statesman who developed many of today’s standard surgical treatments for cardiac and vascular disease. DeBakey was chancellor emeritus of Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas; director of The Methodist DeBakey Heart & Vascular Center; and senior attending surgeon of The Methodist Hospital in Houston. The Lebanese-American’s career spanned seven decades and included a role in development of the mobile army surgical hospital. |
Elizabeth Carpenter (1994 )Liz Carpenter, who served as press secretary to Lady Bird Johnson during her tenure as first lady, was president of the Washington Press Club in 1954. She was an advocate for women in all aspects of public life and was instrumental in what Helen Thomas described as “our first foot in the door” at the all-male National Press Club. After her term as president of the Washington Press Club, Carpenter negotiated an arrangement with the NPC leadership so female reporters could sit in the balcony to cover news-making luncheons. |
Sarah Weddington (1993)Sarah Ragle Weddington is an American attorney, law professor, and former member of the Texas House of Representatives best known for her role in the landmark Roe v. Wade case before the United States Supreme Court, representing “Jane Roe.” |
George Erik Rupp (1992)George Erik Rupp is an American educator and theologian, who served as President of Rice University and later of Columbia University, and president of the International Rescue Committee from July 2002 to August 2013. |
James Charles Lehrer (1991)James Charles Lehrer is an American journalist and a novelist. Lehrer is the former Executive Editor and a former News Anchor for the PBS NewsHour on PBS, and is known for his role as a Debate Moderator in U.S. Presidential Election campaigns. |
James Laney (1990)James T. Laney was dean at the Candler School of Theology, president of Emory University and United States Ambassador to South Korea. |
H. Ross Perot (1989)Henry Ross Perot was an American business magnate and former politician. In 1962, Perot founded Electronic Data Systems, a company he sold twenty years later for $2.4 billion. He went on to set up Perot Systems in 1988 and was a U.S. Presidential Candidate in 1992. |
Leon Jaworski (1975 )Leon Jaworski was an American attorney and law professor who served as the second special prosecutor during the Watergate Scandal. |
George H.W. Bush (1973)President George H. W. Bush, is indeed among our alumni, receiving an honorary doctorate from Austin College in 1973. He gave the Commencement address that year, along with Robert Strauss as co-Commencement speakers, and they shared remarks on “New Conditions in the Educational and Political Process.” As recently as 2003, he was on campus speaking as the Chair of Excellence in International Leadership.
Check out our homepage for more insights on Austin College in Shermin, TX. |