Nationwide V.P. is Humanities Baccalaureate speaker

COLUMBUS – Craig Zimpher will speak on The Ohio State University campus on Saturday, June 9. An Ohio State alumnus, Zimpher is the featured speaker at the College of Humanities Baccalaureate, the 13th annual celebration of its graduating students, which begins at 3:30 p.m. in 131 Hitchcock Hall, 2070 Neil Avenue. The event is free and open to the public.

Zimpher serves as Vice President of Government Relations for the Nationwide Insurance Enterprise. He has responsibility for the management and development of various public policy initiatives and representation of the company before legislative, Congressional, and regulatory agencies. Prior to that, he was the Policy Director for the Minority Leader in the Ohio House of Representatives. He has also served as Deputy Assistant to former Ohio Governor James Rhodes and was a member of the Governor's Cabinet, serving as Chairman of the Ohio Industrial Commission. Zimpher also served as a First Lieutenant in the U.S. Army.

During the Baccalaureate ceremony, Humanities alumna Roberta Elliott Wantman will receive the Humanities Alumni Society (HUMAS) Alumni Award of Distinction.

Elliott Wantman earned a B.A. in Latin and an M.A. in Classics at Ohio State. She spent her early career in public relations with the Oklahoma Symphony, the Phoenix Symphony, and the National Symphony Orchestra and has since immersed herself in the Jewish community, working for the New York Jewish Week and a host of national Jewish organizations. For the past ten years, she has served as national director of public affairs at Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America, Inc., the largest women's volunteer organization in the United States

HUMAS also will present its Outstanding Student Award to Genna Duberstein, a Spanish major. She created a documentary that features interviews of ten Japanese-Americans who were interned during World War II and is working on another that addresses prenatal care for Latina immigrants in Columbus, Ohio. She will attend American University's School of Communication to study documentary film-making in the fall.