Norton to Offer Remarks at UDC Commencement (5/11/07)
Norton to Offer Remarks at UDC Commencement
May 11, 2007
Washington, DC-The Office of Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) today announced that Dr. William Pollard, President of the University of the District of Columbia (UDC), has asked Norton to offer remarks at its commencement exercises at 10 AM tomorrow (Saturday, May 12) at the Verizon Center (7th and F Streets, NW). The keynote speaker will be Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson, who was once a D.C. housing official in the administration of former Mayor Marion Barry. Concerns were raised after Secretary Jackson was invited that he may have indicated at a public forum that he was against the D.C. House vote bill. Norton today had a good conversation with Jackson.
Norton's bill, introduced in the Senate by Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), Chairman of the D.C. oversight committee (Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs), the senior Senator from Utah, Orrin Hatch (R) and Utah Sen. Robert Bennett (R), will come before Lieberman's committee at a hearing next Tuesday, May 15. The Congresswoman will testify. The House passed the bill on April 19th.
Norton is a longtime supporter of UDC, the only state university in the District. In 1999, when Norton introduced and later won passage of the D.C. College Access Act, she also insisted on Historically Black College and University funding status for UDC that the District had long sought. The university has received thousands of dollars in HBCU federal funding as a result.