The opening All-College Convocation at Denison University will feature eco-warrior Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaking on "What Contribution Will You Make?" Open to the public, the convocation will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday (Sept. 3) in Swasey Chapel. The convocation is sponsored by the Academic Lecture Fund and the Lilly Endowment at Denison.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

In addition to opening the semester's convocation presentations, this event serves as the concluding event of August Orientation activities for first-year students. Those students, as well as faculty and staff, were invited earlier in the summer by Dean of First Year Students Laurel B. Kennedy to submit some sort of creative enterprise -- a poem, a photograph, an essay of recollection or political criticism, or a report of scientific research. More than 100 of those submissions will be on display in the Cleveland Hall Student Gallery. Individuals who submitted works also have been invited to attend a private reception following Kennedy's talk.

Robert F. Kennedy was U.S. Attorney General under his brother, President John F. Kennedy, served as Senator from New York state and was a candidate for president in 1968 when he was assassinated in Los Angeles. His namesake son, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has earned his own public service reputation as a defender of the environment from a litany of successful legal actions: prosecuting governments and companies for polluting the Hudson River and Long Island Sound; winning settlements for the Hudson Riverkeeper; arguing cases to expand citizen access to the shoreline; and suing sewage treatment plants to force compliance with the Clean Water Act. His work emphasizes the involvement of ordinary people who regard protection of the local environment as their personal responsibility. He has been a strong advocate of the use of "riverkeepers" who educate and mobilize local communities to care for their rivers and streams.

President of the Waterkeeper Alliance, Kennedy is a clinical professor and supervising attorney at the Environmental Litigation Clinic at Pace University School of Law, where he earned a master's degree in environmental law after graduation from Harvard University and the University of Virginia Law School. He also studied at the London School of Economics.

Kennedy also serves as the chief prosecuting attorney for the Hudson Riverkeeper and senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council. Earlier in his career he served as assistant district attorney in New York City. He has worked on several political campaigns, including Edward M. Kennedy's 1980 presidential campaign and Al Gore's in 2000.

Credited with leading the fight to protect New York City's water supply, he negotiated the New York City watershed agreement on behalf of environmentalists and New York City watershed consumers. The agreement is regarded as an international model in stakeholder consensus negotiations and sustainable development.

Kennedy is author of "The Riverkeepers," published in 1997 with co-author and Hudson Riverkeeper John Cronin, as well as "New York State Apprentice Falconer's Manual" and "Judge Frank M. Johnson Jr., A Biography" (1977). He is a licensed master falconer and often pursues a life-long enthusiasm for white-water paddling.

Link here [jpg]for a downloadable high-resolution JPEG format photograph of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

About Denison:

Denison University, founded in 1831, is an independent, residential liberal arts institution located in Granville, Ohio. A highly selective college enrolling 2,100 full-time undergraduate students from all 50 states and dozens of foreign countries, Denison is a place where innovative faculty and motivated students collaborate in rigorous scholarship, civic engagement and the cultivation of independent thinking.

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