ATLANTA - Pat Mitchell, President and CEO of the Museum of Television and Radio, Michelle Nunn, Co-Founder and CEO of Hands on Network, and Senator Sam Nunn will receive honorary degrees during Oglethorpe University’s 2006 commencement ceremony, to be held Saturday, May 13, on the Academic Quadrangle at 9:00 a.m.

Mitchell, Nunn and Nunn will be presented with an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree. Previous recipients at Oglethorpe commencements have included Franklin D. Roosevelt, Amelia Earhart, Ivan E. Allen, Sr., T. Woodrow Wilson and more recently John Brooks Fuqua, Andrew Young, Anne Rivers Siddons, Billy Payne, Yoel Levi, Zell Miller, S. Truett Cathy, Max Cleland, Miles Brand, Samuel F. Pickering and Jack Guynn.

Pat Mitchell, formally the president and CEO of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), was the first woman and first producer and journalist to hold the position. Under Mitchell’s leadership, PBS rejuvenated the National Program Service and developed many new projects, including new series for children focusing on teaching literacy and celebrating diversity. A former classroom teacher and college instructor, Mitchell has enjoyed a three-decade career in media. A magna cum laude graduate of the University of Georgia, with a master’s degree in English literature, Mitchell is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the United States Afghan Women's Council; a founding member of Mikhail Gorbachev's global environmental organization, Global Green USA and an adviser to the Center for Public Leadership at the Kennedy School of Harvard University.

Michelle Nunn graduated from the University of Virginia with a major in history and a minor in religion. She was a Kellogg National Fellow and completed her master's in public administration from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Mrs. Nunn has been part of the Hands On Network movement through her fourteen-year leadership of Hands On Atlanta from a grassroots startup in 1989 to one of the nation's largest community-based volunteer organizations. She was appointed and currently sits on the President's Council on Service and Civic Engagement.
 

Her father, Senator Sam Nunn, is co-chairman and CEO of the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), a charitable organization working to reduce the global threats from nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. He served as a United States Senator from Georgia for 24 years (1972-1996) and is retired from the law firm King & Spalding. He attended Georgia Tech, Emory University and Emory Law School, where he graduated with honors. In addition to his work with NTI, Senator Nunn has continued his service in the public policy arena as a distinguished professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at Georgia Tech and as chairman of the board of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.