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Jeanean Merkel, 410-230-3540 or 571-233-4492
LSA President and CEO Receives Honorary Doctor of Laws
May 11, 2010 – Baltimore, MD – Jill A. Schumann, President and CEO of Lutheran Services in America (LSA), addressed graduates at Concordia University Chicago and received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree during the May 8 commencement at the University’s River Forest, Illinois campus.
Schumann addressed the Undergraduate Commencement on “A Picture of Possibilities.”
During the address, Schumann told undergraduates “…to picture the kind of world you want to live in, to picture a society in which people can thrive, the kind of loving community God envisions for us, and then to be the change you want to see. Let it drive you. God calls us to love and serve our neighbors…”
As a consultant for church organizations, as well as for healthcare, aging services and social service providers, she has promoted innovative programming for the future. She has held executive roles in not-for-profit and for-profit organizations. Schumann has created groundbreaking programs in post-acute healthcare, behavioral health and chemical dependency treatment. In 2009, for the seventh consecutive year, the NonProfit Times named Schumann one of the Top 50 leaders of power and influence in the United States, describing her as an “imaginative social entrepreneur.”
Founded in 1864, Concordia University Chicago is a comprehensive liberal arts-based Christian university in the Lutheran tradition. More than 5000 full-time undergraduate and graduate students are enrolled at Concordia’s College of Arts and Sciences, College of Business, College of Education, and College of Graduate and Innovative Programs.
Lutheran Services in America creates opportunities with people in thousands of communities throughout the United States and the Caribbean as an alliance of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, The Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod, and their more than 300 health and human service organizations. Working neighbor to neighbor through services in health care, aging and disability supports, community development, housing, and child and family strengthening, these organizations together touch the lives of more than six million people or one in 50 Americans each year.
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