W&L's ODK Circle Honors Four Honorary Initiates, Inducts Undergraduate and Law Students
Washington and Lee University’s Alpha Circle of Omicron Delta Kappa will recognize four honorary initiates plus eight undergraduate and seven law student initiates at the Founders Day/Omicron Delta Kappa Convocation on Friday, Jan. 18, at 11:45 a.m. in Lee Chapel.
Andrew Delbanco, the Mendelson Family Chair of American Studies and Julian Clarence Levi Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University, will speak at the convocation. The title of Delbanco’s talk is “What is College For?”
Omicron Delta Kappa (ODK), the national leadership honor society, was founded at W&L on Dec. 3, 1914, by 15 student and faculty leaders. ODK encourages superior scholarship, leadership and exemplary character. The organization recognizes achievement in five areas: scholarship; athletics; campus/community service, social/religious activities and campus government; journalism, speech and the mass media; and creative and performing arts.
The ODK honorary inductees are Loranne Ausley of Tallahassee, Fla., James J. Livesay of Houston, and Mark H. Grunewald and Pamela K. Luecke of Lexington.
Loranne Ausley is “of counsel” to the law firm Hollimon, P.A., in Tallahassee, as well as the southern director for Project New America, a national research and strategy firm. She serves on several boards in Florida. A member of the W&L Law Class of 1990, Ausley worked as an attorney in Miami after law school, served in the U.S. Travel and Tourism administration in the Department of Commerce and in the Department of Housing and Urban Development before returning to her native Florida. She served as chief-of-staff to Lieutenant Governor Buddy MacKay and then served in the Florida House of Representatives.
As a leader in the Florida house, she developed expertise in health care and education and became the leading advocate for children’s issues. She sponsored the bill that created the Florida Children and Youth Cabinet, which coordinates state agencies and programs that deliver children’s services. She received, among others, awards from the Florida Development Disabilities Council, the Florida School Board Association, the Florida Association of School Psychologists and the Florida Children’s Forum. Ausley is a marathon runner and triathlete.
James J. Livesay, a member of the W&L Class of 1969, is an accomplished surgeon, with extensive experience in cardiovascular surgery at the Texas Heart Institute in Houston. He is a professor of surgery at the Baylor College of Medicine and the University of Texas Medical School in Houston.
Livesay has authored or co-authored 104 scholarly publications, including six book chapters. He received many awards, including being honored by the American Heart Association and Best Doctors in America and America’s Top Surgeons. In 1996, Washington and Lee awarded him an honorary doctorate.
Mark H. Grunewald is the James P. Morefield Professor of Law at the Washington and Lee School of Law. He joined the Washington and Lee law faculty in 1976, serving as associate dean and twice as interim dean. Prior to joining the W&L faculty he was an associate in a Washington law firm and served as an attorney in the Office of Legal Counsel of the U.S. Department of Justice.
For the American Bar Association, he has chaired the Academic Standards Committee, the Educational Planning and Curriculum Committee, the Faculty Appointments Committee and the self-study. He has written widely and serves as a labor arbitrator on the roster of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service.
Pamela K. Luecke is the Donald W. Reynolds Professor of Business Journalism and head of the Department of Journalism and Mass Communications. She joined the W&L faculty in 2001, and in 2002 she launched a concentration in business journalism, bridging the curricula of the Journalism Department and the Williams School of Commerce, Economics, and Politics. Before joining Washington and Lee, Luecke had a 26-year career in daily newspapers, most recently as editor and senior vice president of the Lexington Herald Leader. She also held editing and reporting positions at the Hartford Courant, the (Louisvillle) Courier Journal and the Louisville Times.
During her career, she served as supervising editor of two projects recognized with Pulitzer prizes. She is a past member of the board of trustees of Carleton College and was a committee chair for the American Society of Newspapers Editors. She serves on the boards of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government, the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications and Kendal at Lexington.
Class of 2013
Kendré Simone Barnes (Omaha, Neb.); Alicia Owen Bishop (Jacksonville, Fla.); Megan Elizabeth Bock (Holmdel, N.J.); Samuel Lee Brett (Raleigh, N.C.); Elizabeth Rebecca Engel (Lexington, Ky.); Kerriann Elise Laubach (McMurray, Pa.); Andrew Channing Martin (Midlothian, Va.); Brett L. Murray (Lookout Mountain, Tenn.); Nathaniel Wilson Reisinger (Urbana, Ohio); Bethany Anne Reynolds (Timonium, Md.); Eric Robert Rosato (Cortland, N.Y.); Kelly Mae Ross (Endicott, N.Y.); Emily Shu (San Jose, Calif.); Kathryn DeArmon Stewart (Charlotte, N.C.); Robert Griffin Vestal (Memphis, Tenn.); and Isaac Daniel Webb (Portland, Maine).
Class of 2014
Emilia Rose DiGiovanni (Franklin, Tenn.); Nicole Samara Gunawansa (Portsmouth, Va.); Morgan Elizabeth Luttig (Lake Forest, Ill.); Annelise A. Madison (Roca, Neb.); Eric M. Shuman (Black Mountain, N.C.); Jake Elijah Struebing (Amherst, N.Y.); Alvin George Thomas (Skokie, Ill.); and Victoria Hart Van Natten (Towson, Md.).
Law Class of 2013
Luther R. Ashworth II (Mechanicsville, Va.); Douglas L. Dua (Morris Plains, N.J.); Kyle R. Hosmer (Brighton, Colo.); Alexander M. Sugzda (Old Greenwich, Conn.); and Alan James Wenger (Buena Vista, Va.).
Law Class 2014
Joseph Tyler Black (Orinda, Calif.) and Thomas L. Short (Lexington, Va.).
News Contact:
Julie Cline
News Writer
jcline@wlu.edu
540-458-8954
