Le Moyne College selects ProLiteracy founder, Colvin, as commencement speaker

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Le Moyne College has chosen Ruth Johnson Colvin, founder of the nonprofit ProLiteracy Worldwide, as the speaker for its 68th commencement ceremony on May 20.

Colvin, 101, is also a member of the National Women’s Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls and recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Le Moyne said in a news release.

Besides delivering the commencement address, Le Moyne will also award Colvin an honorary degree. The college will also award honorary degrees to Oren Lyons, an activist for indigenous and environmental justice, and Sean Kirst, an upstate New York columnist and author.

Colvin is the founder of the nonprofit ProLiteracy Worldwide, previously known as Literacy Volunteers of America (LVA), which was formed in Syracuse in 1962. ProLiteracy supports programs that help adults learn to read and write, and is the largest organization of its type in the country, with over 1,000 member programs in the U.S. as well as a presence in 25 countries worldwide, according to the Le Moyne news release.

Born on Dec. 16, 1916 in Chicago, Illinois, Colvin earned a two-year degree in business from Thornton Junior College in Harvey, Illinois in 1936. She later attended Moser Business College and Northwestern University, and also earned a bachelor’s degree in business from Syracuse University in 1959.

In the early 1960s, Colvin discovered that Syracuse had more than 11,000 people functionally illiterate and took steps to combat the problem. Before forming LVA, she developed tutor training manuals to help volunteers in this effort.

Those manuals “are still considered authoritative sources” for the purpose of training basic literacy to adults, Le Moyne said.

Literacy Volunteers of America was officially chartered in 1967. Colvin created the English as a Second Language training program and helped to found the National Coalition for Literacy in the following years to increase public awareness of this issue.

In 2002, Literacy Volunteers merged with a similar organization, Laubach Literacy International, to form, what is now known as, ProLiteracy Worldwide.

The nonprofit currently has more than 100,000 volunteers and students connected to the organization, including Colvin herself “who, at the age of 101, still volunteers in U.S. and abroad,” per the release.

In December 2006, President George W. Bush presented Colvin with the Presidential Medal of Freedom to honor her life’s work. She has published nine books, received more than 30 awards and honors for her efforts, and received seven honorary doctorates. In 1993, she was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com

Photo credit: Le Moyne College