News Release
May 2004
(Bethlehem, Pa.)—The Honorable Marjorie O. Rendell, First Lady
of Pennsylvania and Judge of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, will
be the honored speaker at Moravian’s 262nd Baccalaureate Service.
The service will be held on Friday, May 14, at 5:30 p.m., in Central
Moravian Church.
Dr. Dennis G. Glew, professor of classics and history,
will serve as Marshal of Faculty. Dr. Stacey Zaremba, associate professor
of psychology,
will serve as Marshal of Students. Dr. Ervin J. Rokke, president of
Moravian College, will preside at the service. The Moravian College
Choir and Moravian College Women’s Chorus conducted by Dr. Paula
Ring Zerkle will perform, with organist Adam P. Koch.
Marjorie Osterlund Rendell became the 43rd First Lady
of Pennsylvania when her husband, Governor Edward G. Rendell, was sworn
in as Governor
of Pennsylvania on January 21, 2003.
Born and raised in Wilmington,
Delaware, the First Lady earned her Bachelor of Arts degree, Cum
Laude, at the University of Pennsylvania,
where she was
a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Honorary Society. Upon receiving her Juris
Doctor degree from Villanova University School of Law, she joined the
law firm of
Duane, Morris & Heckscher, subsequently becoming the firm's second woman
partner. Over the course of her 20-year career as a practicing attorney, she
specialized in bankruptcy law and commercial litigation, and served as a mediator
for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Judge
Rendell was inducted into the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District
of Pennsylvania in 1994 and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
in 1997.
Throughout her professional career, Judge Rendell has participated
in many civic and community endeavors. She was an active board member
of the Visiting Nurse Association of Greater Philadelphia for more
than 20 years. Currently, she is a trustee of the University of Pennsylvania,
Chair of the Board of Overseers of the University of Pennsylvania's
School Nursing and a board member of Penn Medicine. Additionally, she
serves on the Trustees Council of Penn Women and the university's External
Affairs and Neighborhood Initiatives Committees.
During the time her husband was mayor of Philadelphia, Judge Rendell
served as Chair of Avenue of the Arts, Inc., the independent nonprofit
organization that she helped found in 1993 to develop North and South
Broad Street (the Avenue of the Arts) in Center City Philadelphia into
a world-class cultural and performing arts district. The First Lady
is also Vice Chair of the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts. Over
the course of only eight years, she helped to bring the dream of a
Philadelphia regional performance arts center from a shared vision
to the construction and grand opening of the spectacular, world-class
Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts.
Additionally, in 1999 the First Lady established a Philadelphia Reads/Power
Partners Chapter at the federal courthouse in Philadelphia. Philadelphia
Reads is an initiative from the Office of the Mayor, City of Philadelphia,
that works to ensure that all children read well and independently
by the end of third grade. Through the Power Partners Program, which
the First Lady continues to lead, two public school classrooms visit
the federal courthouse to receive weekly one-on-one reading by approximately
twenty federal judges' chambers.
Moravian College is a private, coeducational, selective liberal arts
college located in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Tracing its founding to
1742, it is recognized as America's sixth-oldest college. Visit the
Moravian College Web site at www.moravian.edu.
