Humanities Baccalaureate Features John D'Arms

HUMANITIES BACCALAUREATE FEATURES SPEAKER JOHN D'ARMS, AWARD CEREMONY

COLUMBUS -- John D'Arms, president of the American Council of 
Learned Societies (ACLS), will speak on The Ohio State University 
campus on Thursday, June 11.  D'Arms is the featured speaker at the 
College of Humanities Baccalaureate, a celebration of the 
achievements of students, faculty, staff and alumni, which begins at 
3:30 p.m. in the Wexner Center Film/Video Theater.  The event is free 
and open to the public; no reservation is required.

Prior to his September 1997 appointment as president of the 
ACLS, D'Arms served as the Gerald F. Else Professor of the Humanities 
and a professor of classical studies and history at the University of 
Michigan.  He was dean of the Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate 
Studies at Michigan from 1985 to 1995 and vice provost for academic 
affairs from 1990 to 1995.

From 1977 to 1980, D'Arms was director of the American Academy 
in Rome (a residential advanced study center chartered by the U.S. 
Congress in 1911) and the A.W. Mellon Professor in its School of 
Classical Studies.  His scholarly work focuses on aspects of ancient 
Roman cities, culture and society.  His publications include Romans 
on the Bay of Naples (1970) and Commerce and Social Standing in 
Ancient Rome (1981).  

D'Arms has been a spokesman for the humanities at a national 
level as a former member of the Board of Directors of the ACLS, 
trustee of the National Humanities Center (Research Triangle Park, 
N.C.) and member of the national Committee for Mellon Fellowships in 
the Humanities.  He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of 
Arts and Sciences in 1992.  He is a past member of the National 
Council for the Humanities, the governing board of the National 
Endowment for the Humanities.

The American Council of Learned Societies, a nonprofit 
organization founded in 1919, is a federation of 60 national learned 
societies in the humanities and social sciences.

During the ceremony, two Ohio State University alumni will 
receive the Humanities Alumni Society (HUMAS) Alumni Awards of 
Distinction.

College of Humanities alumni Carole Black (B.A., English) and 
Elaine H. Hairston (B.A., English; M.A. and Ph.D., speech) will be 
recognized for their outstanding personal and professional 
achievements and for having brought distinction to the college.

Black is president and general manager of KNBC-TV Channel 4 in 
Los Angeles.  She is the first woman ever to head a commercial 
television station in Los Angeles, the second-largest television 
market in the nation, and is also the first woman ever to lead a Big 
Three major market station.  The station has risen to No. 1 in its 
market since she took the position in 1994.  She previously served as 
vice president, worldwide marketing, home video, and senior vice 
president, marketing, television for The Walt Disney Co., where she 
spearheaded the marketing effort to syndicate "Home Improvement" and 
helped make Disney an international leader in home video sales.  
Black also oversaw the implementation of Sears' "Open Home" and 
"McKids" lines as senior vice president, management representative at 
DDB Needham in Chicago.

As chancellor of the Ohio Board of Regents, Hairston oversaw the 
coordination of 65 public college and university campuses.  Her 
service with the Regents began in 1979; she was chancellor from 1990 
to 1997.  Initiatives developed under Hairston include a statewide 
search and development of strategies that public colleges and 
universities could use to operate more efficiently and effectively in 
the future; Ohio's Selective Excellence Program, including the Ohio 
Eminent Scholar Program; establishment of the Ohio Supercomputer 
Center; and development of OhioLink.  She has testified before U.S. 
Senate committees on behalf of the State Higher Education Executive 
Officers Organization (SHEEO), and was the organization's national 
president.  Hairston also is a former associate director of Ohio 
State's Office of Affirmative Action and assistant vice president for 
registration services.

HUMAS also will present Outstanding Student Awards to Elizabeth 
Loentz of Columbus, who is pursuing a doctoral degree in Germanic 
languages and literatures and a second master's degree in Yiddish, 
and Karl Matthias of Shaker Heights, a senior majoring in medieval 
and Renaissance studies.
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Contact:  Shari Lorbach, College of Humanities, (614) 292-1882