St. Francis College is proud to welcome U.S. Supreme Court Justice and native New Yorker Sonia Sotomayor on Feb. 2 as the latest speaker for its compelling Thomas J. Volpe Lecture Series.
Sotomayor, who identifies herself as a “Nuyorican,” was born in Bronx on June 25, 1954 and raised in NYCHA’s Bronxdale Houses. She earned a B.A. in 1976 from Princeton University, graduating summa cum laude and receiving the university’s highest academic honor. In 1979, she earned a J.D. from Yale Law School where she served as an editor of the Yale Law Journal. She thereafter served as Assistant District Attorney in the New York County District Attorney’s Office from 1979–1984. She then litigated international commercial matters in New York City at Pavia & Harcourt, where she served as an associate and then partner from 1984–1992.
In 1991, President George H.W. Bush nominated her to the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, and she served in that role from 1992–1998. She then served as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit from 1998–2009. President Barack Obama nominated her as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court on May 26, 2009, and she assumed this role August 8, 2009.
The event will include a conversation with Sotomayor and St. Francis alumna and former law clerk Sparkle Sooknanan ’02, an associate at Jones Day, followed with a audience participation question and answer session.
The conversation is the latest event in the Thomas J. Volpe Lecture Series, which for 20 years has brought guest speakers to St. Francis College to offer an international perspective in a variety of fields; from business leaders to world leaders.
Past speakers include astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson (Cosmos), Jerry Greenfield (Ben & Jerry’s), authors Frank Bruni (New York Times), Pete Hamill (Snow in August), E.L. Doctorow (Ragtime), and Salman Rushdie (Midnight’s Children), Russell Simmons (Def Jam), Mariane Pearl (wife of slain reporter Daniel Pearl), Paul Rusesabagina (the real Hotel Rwanda hero), Lech Walesa (former President of Poland, Nobel Prize winner) and George Mitchell (former U.S. Senator, Nobel Peace Prize nominee, baseball steroids report).
The Thomas J. Volpe Lecture Series is funded through a generous gift from Thomas J. Volpe, Chairman Emeritus of the St. Francis College Board of Trustees and a former Senior Vice President of Financial Operations for The Interpublic Group of Companies, Inc.
The event is slated for 1:30 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 2 at St. Francis College’s Founders Hall, 182 Remsen Street in Brooklyn Heights. Tickets are required. For more information contact special events at 718.489.5372 or events@sfc.edu.
St. Francis College, founded in 1859 by the Franciscan Brothers of Brooklyn, is located in Brooklyn Heights. Since its founding, the College has pursued its Franciscan mission to provide an affordable, high-quality education to students from New York City’s five boroughs and beyond.
