Former surgeon general to speak at SU commencement

A combination of over 500 graduation candidates from Southern’s Baton Rouge and New Orleans campuses will hear Dr. David Satcher, the nation’s 16th surgeon general, as the fall graduation commencement speaker on Dec. 9 in the F. G. Clark Activity Center. The graduation ceremony will begin at 10:30 a.m.
“I am glad that the commencement speaker is an African-American,” said NiaShanta McClenen, a senior english major from Tulsa, Okla.
Currently the interim president of the Morehouse School of Medicine, Satcher served as surgeon general from 1998 to 2002. A husband and father of four, Satcher has worked extensively as an advocate for the availability of all ethnicities to receive medicine and public health work for over 20 years.
The second in history to do so, Satcher served simultaneously in the positions of surgeon general and assistant secretary for health until January 2001. It was during this time that he orchestrated Healthy People 2010, a national health initiative centered on disease prevention with goals to increase the quality and years of healthy life in addition to eliminating health disparities.
Stacher has a long resume of positions and honors including, being named as a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar and Macy Faculty Fellow. He received the Benjamin Mays Trailblazer Award and served as the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
He was the administrator of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry; professor and chairman of the Department of Community Medicine and Family Practice at Morehouse School of Medicine; the director of the National Center for Primary Care at Morehouse School of Medicine; senior visiting fellow with the Kaiser Foundation, and President of Meharry Medical College.
Satcher, a former faculty member of the University of California-Los Angeles School of Medicine and Public Health and the King-Drew Medical Center, organized and chaired the King-Drew Department of Family Medicine. In addition to directing the King-Drew Sickle Cell Research Center for six years, he served as the interim dean of the Charles R. Drew Postgraduate Medical School from 1977-1979. It was during this time that he negotiated the agreement between the UCLA School of Medicine and Board of Regents, leading to a medical education program.
Satcher is a 1963 graduate of Morehouse College in Atlanta. In 1970, he received his medical degree and doctorate in philosophy from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. Satcher performed his residency and fellowship training at Strong Memorial Hospital, University of Rochester, University of California-Los Angeles and the King-Drew Medical Center.
When appointed as surgeon general, Satcher wanted to be known as someone who listened to Americans and responded with effective programs. His mission was and has been to make public health work for all groups and a champion of promoting healthy lifestyles.
“I am looking forward to the commencement speaker providing a sense of motivation to those who may not know where they are exactly going after graduation,” McClenen said.