Alumni

Honorary Degrees to be Granted to Four

A Valparaiso University graduate who is a nationally recognized authority on personality and developmental psychology, a retired local physician, a leading legal scholar and the head of a national social service agency will be awarded honorary degrees from Valparaiso this month.

Honored at May 17 commencement ceremonies for School of Law graduates will be Thomas L. Shaffer, Robert and Marion Short professor of law emeritus at the University of Notre Dame Law School, who will receive an honorary doctor of laws degree.

Receiving honorary degrees at May 18 ceremonies for students completing undergraduate and graduate degrees will be Dr. Dan P. McAdams, chair of the program in human development and social policy at Northwestern University, doctor of humane letters; Dr. Surjit S. Patheja, retired chief of staff at Porter’s Valparaiso hospital campus, doctor of science; and Jill A. Schumann, president and chief executive officer of Lutheran Services in America, doctor of humane letters.

Shaffer is author of nearly 300 scholarly works on the law, including numerous books, and has served advisory editorships with a variety of legal publications. A graduate of the University of Notre Dame Law School, he has been associated with the school for more than 35 years, serving four years as dean. He was named to the Short chair in 1988 and awarded emeritus status in 1997. Earlier he taught at Washington and Lee University for nine years and has held visiting professorships at several law schools.

Dr. McAdams, a 1976 Valparaiso graduate, also is Charles Deering McCormick professor of teaching excellence at Northwestern. He is a national leader in the emergence in the social sciences of a narrative approach to studying human lives and life-span developmental psychology and is author of 14 books and more than 150 scholarly articles. His book The Redemptive Self: Stories Americans Live By has earned two major awards from the American Psychological Association.

Dr. Patheja, whose gift established the Patheja Chair in World Religions and Ethics at Valparaiso, is a native of Pakistan who developed a medical specialty with study of radiology in the United States. He practiced at Porter for more than 30 years, serving a number of years as head of the radiology department. He is past president of several medical organizations including the Porter County Medical Society and the Indiana Medical Association of Northwest Indiana.

Schumann has headed Lutheran Services in America since 2001 and previously served as director of member services for two years. The agency is composed of nearly 300 organizations with more than 3,000 delivery sites across the U.S. and annual budgets of nearly $10 billion, She has been named to The NonProfit Times list of “Top 50 People of Power and Influence” for five consecutive years. Earlier in her career she was executive vice president of Kairos Health Systems.