Patt Morrison Named as Marymount’s Commencement Speaker

Journalist, author and radio-television personality Patt Morrison has been named as the Marymount College commencement speaker for the graduating class of 2013. With both bachelor's and associate degree ceremonies scheduled for May 11 at the college's main campus in Rancho Palos Verdes, Morrison will be the featured inspirational speaker and will receive an honorary doctorate of humanities from Marymount College.

Morrison’s Background
Patt Morrison, who pens the weekly "Patt Morrison Asks" column, is a writer and columnist for the Los Angeles Times, where her work has spanned topics from national politics and the fall of the Berlin Wall to the O.J. Simpson case, the Gulf War, and Britain's royal family. She has a share in two of the Los Angeles Times' Pulitzer Prizes, for writing about the 1992 riots and the 1994 Northridge earthquake. At the paper, she's also served as a book reviewer, and as a contributing editor for Los Angeles Times Magazine.

In her television work, she has won six Emmys and four Golden Mike awards as founding host and later as commentator on "Life & Times," the news and current affairs program on KCET-TV.

She was also host and consulting producer on the nationally syndicated weekly "The Book Show with Patt Morrison," and for almost 10 years, her commentaries were heard nationally on National Public Radio's "Morning Edition."

As host of "Patt Morrison" on KPCC radio, she won six more Golden Mike awards, three of them for Best Public Affairs radio show. She was on the cover of "Talkers" magazine, the national magazine for radio talk show hosts, and was ranked in the magazine's "Heavy Hundred" top radio hosts, the first local public radio host to be ranked. She created the award-winning and hugely popular political humor show "Comedy Congress" which airs on KPCC. Her talk show was canceled in 2012, but she continues as a special correspondent at KPCC, interviewing such figures as Supreme Court justice Sonia Sotomayor, and hosting "Comedy Congress."

Among her favorite honors is the fact that Pink's, the venerable Hollywood hot dog stand, names its vegetarian hot dog after her. (Patt is a vegetarian; Dame Jane Goodall once told her that the single biggest difference an individual can make on the world is to stop eating meat.)

She is the author of the best-selling Rio LA, Tales from the Los Angeles River, and has contributed to a number of anthologies, including the award-winning collection of mystery stories entitled LA Noir.

In 2000, she received the Joseph M. Quinn award from the Los Angeles Press Club for lifetime achievement, the first woman in a quarter-century to receive that honor. She also has been honored by the Associated Press Newspaper Editors Association, the Los Angeles Press Club, the Aviation/Space Writers Association, the National Association of Newspaper Columnists, the League of Women Voters of Beverly Hills, the American Civil Liberties Union, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the Los Angeles chapter of Women in Communications and the YWCA of Greater Los Angeles.

Ms. Magazine named her one of its "Women Who Made a Difference" in a special 2001 issue.

She is the co-author with the Los Angeles Times’ Cecilia Rasmussen of Angels Walk, a series of Los Angeles historical markers and guidebooks.

She served for eight years as adjunct professor at the University of Southern California's School of Journalism. She is a graduate of Occidental College, which named her alumnus of the year in 1995. She was elected to its Board of Trustees in 1998.

Marymount College is one of two Catholic, four-year coeducational colleges in Los Angeles County. With campuses along the picturesque coastline of Rancho Palos Verdes and in the vibrant community of San Pedro, Marymount College challenges its students to pursue lives of leadership and service. In the spirit of its founding order, the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary, the College strives to graduate students who embody the virtues of integrity, respect for human dignity and commitment to justice. Marymount offers M.S. degrees (pending WASC approval) in Community Psychology and in Leadership & Community Development; B.A. degrees in Business, Liberal Arts, Media Studies and Psychology; and A.A. degrees in a variety of fields.

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