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Fulbright Honors W&L Alumus John D. Maguire

The Fulbright Association is honoring Washington and Lee alumnus John D. Maguire of the Class of 1953 with its Lifetime Achievement Medal. Maguire, president emeritus of the Claremont University Consortium and director of the Institute for Democratic Renewal,, will receive the award on May 12 in Washington. He’s in an impressive group of four recipients. In addition to John, others are poet Rita Dove, composer Philip Glass, and entrepreneur Ruth M. Owades. All four are alumni of the Fulbright program and, according to the announcement, are distinguished by “career accomplishments and civic and educational contributions are judged to have expanded the boundaries of human wisdom, empathy, and perception.” John was president of CGU for 17 years after previously being president of the State University of New York College at Old Westbury. Immediately after his graduation from W&L, John spent his Fulbright year at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, before returning to get a divinity degree and a Ph.D. from Yale. He’s internationally respected as a teacher-scholar and a social activist. As a young religion professor at Wesleyan University, was arrested on one of the Freedom Rides in Montgomery, Ala., in 1961. He received an honorary degree from W&L in 1979.

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