MSU spring commencement speakers work to keep our planet healthy

Contact: Kristin K. Anderson, University Relations: (517) 353-8819, ander284@msu.edu  

March 31, 2008

Gro Harlem Brundtland

Peter H. Raven

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Two internationally recognized leaders working to keep the world and its inhabitants healthy will be Michigan State University’s spring 2008 commencement speakers Friday, May 2.

Gro Harlem Brundtland, former director general of the World Health Organization and former prime minister of Norway, and botanist Peter Raven, president of the Missouri Botanical Garden, will address students, families and guests during ceremonies at the Jack Breslin Student Events Center, One Birch Road.

Brundtland, who will receive an honorary doctor of laws, will speak at the 1 p.m. convocation, a central ceremony for all undergraduate candidates for degrees graduating at MSU this spring. Raven, who will receive an honorary doctor of science, will speak to candidates for advanced degrees at the 7 p.m. ceremony at the Breslin Center.

“Both our speakers developed passions for global responsibility early in their lives,” said MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon. “Their efforts to educate others as to how we treat our planet and its citizens in matters of health equity and plant conservation are reflected in their public service careers. They will serve as exemplars of commitment and service for the betterment of students and for the public good.”

Brief biographies of the speakers follow.

GRO HARLEM BRUNDTLAND

Gro Harlem Brundtland knew she wanted to be a doctor like her father. When, at the age of 10, she moved with her family to the United States, she also discovered within her a strong sense of internationalism and political activism.

She received her medical education at the University of Oslo, Norway, and her master of public health from Harvard University. She worked as a physician in the Norwegian Directorate of Health and in Oslo’s public school’s health service. As a young mother and doctor, her career focused on children’s health issues.

She served as the Norwegian Minister for Environmental Affairs from 1974 to 1979, focusing on the links between public health and the environment. In 1981, she became Norway’s first woman prime minister. She also held that position from 1986 to 1989 and from 1990 to 1996. Brundtland was chairperson of the World Commission on Environment and Development, commonly referred to as the Brundtland Commission, developing broad political concepts of sustainable development, and providing the impetus for the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

Brundtland, who was elected director-general of the World Health Organization in 1998, was recognized in 2003 by Scientific American as its “Policy Leader of the Year” for coordinating a rapid worldwide response to stem outbreaks of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. In May 2007, the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon named Brundtland to serve as a UN Special Envoy for Climate Change.

In 2007, in Johannesburg, South Africa, she joined Nelson Mandela and other world leaders, including former President Jimmy Carter and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, to form The Elders, a group of world leaders who lend their expertise and independent leadership to study and undertake world problems.

PETER H. RAVEN

Peter H. Raven developed a special fondness for plants when he was six years old. Trips to the California Academy of Sciences led to collecting caterpillars, butterflies and moths, and eventually, plants.

Under his direction, the Missouri Botanical Garden has become one of the world’s leading plant conservation centers. He also is the Englemann Professor of Botany at Washington University in St. Louis. He utilizes a broad approach including data from cytogenics, breeding systems, ecological preferences, pollination biology and bio-geographic to work out systematic and evolutionary problems.

For more than 30 years, Raven has been a major proponent of and force behind biodiversity efforts around the world, working to ensure the ecosystems of all plant and animal varieties are protected in light of human consumption. He is best known for his work “Coevolution of Insects and Plants,” which he co-authored with Paul R. Ehrlich, entomologist and author, and published in the journal Evolution in 1964.

Raven joined lead author Jianguo “Jack” Liu, Rachel Carson Chair in Ecological Sustainability, University Distinguished Professor of Fisheries and Wildlife, and director of the Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability at MSU, and other research colleagues, in penning a Policy Forum in the May 23, 2003, issue of Science magazine.

A graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, he received his doctorate in botany from the University of California, Los Angeles. He taught for nine years at Stanford University. He has authored more than 400 articles and 16 books. In its 1999 issue, Time magazine named Raven as one of its Heroes of the Planet, who is “doing extraordinary things to preserve and protect the environment.”

For additional commencement information, visit the Web at www.commencement.msu.edu.

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