Four Alumni Honored on Founders Day

Knox College will celebrate the 170th anniversary of its founding with a Founders Day Convocation at 5 p.m., Thursday, February 15, in the Muelder Reading Room, Seymour Library, on the Knox campus in Galesburg, Illinois. The convocation is free and open to the public.

Also at the convocation, Knox will present alumni achievement awards to Eugene Binder of Austin, Texas, a retired education consultant; Margery Rosen Kraus of Vienna, Virginia, founder and CEO of the communications firm APCO Worldwide; Major General David P. Fridovich, United States Army, of Honolulu, Hawaii; and Monica Berlin of Galesburg, assistant professor of English at Knox College.

Knox College President Roger Taylor and Knox College Student Senate President Matthew Cessna will make opening remarks. Award citations will be read by Robert Seibert, Robert W. Murphy Professor of Political Science at Knox College; Megan Clayton, Coordinator of Activities for the Knox-Lombard Fifty Year Club; George Eaton, Command Historian at the U.S. Army Arsenal in Rock Island, Illinois; and Robin Metz, Philip Sidney Post Professor of English at Knox College. Eric Wilson, chair of the Knox Alumni Association, will deliver closing remarks.

Knox College was chartered by the Illinois Legislature on February 15, 1837. Among the members of the General Assembly was Abraham Lincoln, who would later rise to national prominence in the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates, one of which was held at Knox's Old Main. Today, Old Main is the sole remaining site from the historic debates. A nationally ranked liberal arts college with 1351 students from 46 states and 46 countries, Knox also is one of the 40 colleges listed in the book "Colleges That Change Lives," by former New York Times education editor Loren Pope.

More about the 2007 Alumni Achievement Award winners:

Eugene Binder
Originally from Peoria, Illinois, Eugene Binder graduated from Knox College in 1956. He earned master's and doctoral degrees at Washington State University. Following service in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War, for which he was awarded the Bronze Star, Binder began a distinguished, 30-year career in private and public higher education in Texas. In 1971, he created the College Assistance Migrant Program (CAMP), a college degree program in Texas designed to meet the needs of students from migrant and seasonal farm worker families. The $17-million program currently enrolls more than 2,000 students annually at 47 campuses. Most recently, he served as a member of the Texas Higher Education Board, as a special educational assistant to Texas Governor Mark White, and as executive assistant to the president and chief of staff at Texas Tech University.

Margery Rosen Kraus
Margery Rosen Kraus is founder, president, and CEO of APCO Worldwide, one of the largest privately owned communications, public affairs, and business consulting firms in the world. A member of the Knox Class of 1967, Kraus completed her bachelor's and master's degrees at American University. She founded APCO in 1984, and the firm has grown from a single office in Washington, D.C. to a multinational operation with offices in major cities throughout the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. Kraus was named the 2006 "Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year" by Ernst & Young's Greater D.C. Chapter, 2005 PR Professional of the Year by PR Week magazine, and one of 25 "Top Women Business Builders" of 2005 by Fast Company magazine.

Major General David P. Fridovich
Holding the rank of Major General in the United States Army since April 2006, David P. Fridovich has served as commander at every level in the Army -- platoon, company, battalion, Special Forces Group, Special Operations Task Force, and Theater Special Operations Command. He has commanded counterterrorism forces throughout the world, including assignments in Korea, Haiti, Hawaii, Bosnia, The Philippines, and the United States. He commanded Special Forces units in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina in 2000 and was instrumental in leading counterterrorist forces in The Philippines. In addition to his command positions, Gen. Fridovich, a 1974 Knox graduate, has served in a variety of operational staff positions, including assistant professor of military sciences at Norwich University.

Monica Berlin
Monica Berlin is currently assistant professor of English at Knox College, where she received the 2003 Philip Green Wright-Lombard College Prize for Distinguished Teaching, the highest teaching honor that the Knox faculty confers upon its members. Berlin is also an accomplished writer. She was a finalist for a 2005 Illinois Arts Council Grant in Poetry and nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2003 and 2004. Her poetry has appeared in numerous publications, including "Manthology: Poems on the Male Experience" and The Missouri Review. Berlin served as the faculty advisor for three of the national award-winning editions of Catch, Knox's literary magazine. A 1995 Knox graduate, Berlin earned a master of fine arts degree at Vermont College. Berlin will receive the Young Alumni Achievement Award, created last year to honor Knox alumni under the age of 35.