Dr. Ian G. Rawson to Deliver Commencement Keynote

Release date: May 20, 2011

Dr. Ian G. Rawson, the managing director of the Hôpital Albert Schweitzer Haiti, will receive an honorary degree and will deliver the keynote address at Goucher College's 120th Commencement on Friday, May 20, 2011.  Listen to a podcast of the address. 

Honorary degrees also will be given to Jim Smith, the former two-term county executive of Baltimore County, and Rosalind Fox Solomon '51, a widely known and recognized artistic photographer.

President Sanford J. Ungar will preside over the ceremony, which will begin at 10:30 a.m. on the Winslow Great Lawn, between the Athenaeum and Katharine and Jane Welsh Hall. For more information, visit www.goucher.edu/commencement.

Rawson's expertise and commitment to improving health care have made an immeasurable impact in his hometown of Pittsburgh, in Haiti, and around the world.

Since January, his challenge as managing director of the Hôpital Albert Schweitzer (HAS) in central Haiti is providing medical care for an overwhelming number of refugees affected by the earthquake that devastated much of the southern part of that island in January 2010. The HAS health system, which usually serves a rural population of 300,000, is now serving more than 450,000 Haitians.

When Rawson was 10, his stepfather and mother, Dr. W. Larimer Mellon Jr. and Gwen Grant Mellon, became acquainted with Albert Schweitzer, the great musician, theologian, and physician who founded a hospital in central Africa. They were so inspired by his example they established Hôpital Albert Schweitzer in Haiti's Artibonite Valley in 1956 and devoted the rest of their lives to collaborating with the people of the region to improve their quality of life.

Rawson served as HAS board chair before becoming managing director, and his wife, Lucy, is president of the board of Friends of HAS, which raises funds and awareness through the sale of Haitian art.

He earned his master's degree in political science from the American University of Beirut, his doctorate in medical anthropology from the University of Pittsburgh, and he attended Harvard's School of Public Health executive program in health planning and administration. He was president of the Hospital Council of Western Pennsylvania, president of AmeriNet Central, and a senior manager with Allegheny General Hospital. He served various Pittsburgh cultural and health organizations' boards and advised public health programs in Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and the Dominican Republic.

Media Contact
Kristen Pinheiro
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