For Immediate Release

Contact: Anthony Twyman
Public Relations Coordinator
Community College of Philadelphia
Office: (215) 751-8082
atwyman@ccp.edu

COMMUNITY COLLEGE OF PHILADELPHIA PRESENTS FIRST JUDGE EDWARD R. BECKER AWARD TO U.S. SENATOR ARLEN SPECTER

PHILADELPHIA, February 22, 2007 – Community College of Philadelphia will present its first Judge Edward R. Becker Citizenship Award to U.S. Senator Arlen Specter on Friday, Feb. 23 as part of the College’s Law and Society Week observances.

The ceremony begins at 1:15 p.m. in the Center for Business and Industry at 18th and Callowhill streets. Following a welcome by College President Stephen M. Curtis and an introduction by the College Board of Trustees Chair Daniel P. McElhatton, Esq., the award will be presented to Senator Specter by Charles Becker, Esq., the son of the late federal appeals court judge for whom the award is named. Senator Specter will then deliver the first Edward R. Becker lecture.

Judge Becker, who died in May 2006, was known as a brilliant scholar and one of America’s most respected judges. He was also a close friend of Senator Specter. After graduating Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Pennsylvania in 1954 and Yale Law School in 1957, Judge Becker became a partner in a law practice with his father and brother-in-law. President Richard M. Nixon named him to the federal bench in 1970 at age 37. President Ronald Reagan elevated him to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in 1981. Judge Becker served as chief judge from 1998 to 2003 and served as senior judge until 2006. The author of more than 2,000 appellate opinions, he was known for lengthy and in-depth analyses that thoroughly explored the issues of cases. Judge Becker was one of the federal appeals court judges most often cited by the U.S. Supreme Court, according to the University of Chicago Law Review.

Arlen Specter, the Judge Becker Award recipient and Pennsylvania’s senior U.S. Senator, was elected to the Senate in 1980 and is currently serving his fifth term. In 2005, Senator Specter became Pennsylvania’s longest serving U.S. Senator. He is ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and a senior member of the Appropriations and Veterans Affairs committees. Throughout his long and distinguished career, Senator Specter has demonstrated his dedication and passion to serving the public and the law.

Senator Specter has been a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee since he came to the Senate. He has played an instrumental role in many of the Senate’s most important issues, including the confirmations of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. In early 2006, he presided over the nomination hearings of Judge Samuel Alito to serve as associate justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.

On the Judiciary Committee, Senator Specter continues to build on his foundation as a lawyer and former district attorney. He is the author of the Armed Career Criminal Act, which has been praised for long prison terms for repeat offenders, and the Terrorist Prosecution Act, which authorizes criminal actions in U.S. Courts for assaulting, maiming or murdering Americans anywhere in the world.

As a senior member of the Appropriations Committee, Senator Specter also plays a key role as ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, which oversees federal funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Centers for Disease Control and educational programs like Head Start, Pell grants and GEAR-UP. Under his leadership, funding for education has increased by more than 130 percent. A frequent visitor to all of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties, he places constituent service high on his priorities.

In addition to tackling the major legislative business before the Senate, Senator Specter also engaged in a personal battle with Stage IVB Hodgkin’s lymphoma cancer in 2005. Like Judge Becker, Senator Specter remained focused on his work despite his illness. He underwent nearly five months of chemotherapy, but still maintained all of his Senatorial duties, including chairing hearings, voting and brokering important legislative initiatives. On July 22, 2005, Senator Specter received his last chemotherapy treatment and has since received a clean bill of health.

Senator Specter was born to immigrant parents in Wichita, Kansas, and grew up in the small town of Russell, Kansas. He is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and served as an editor of the Yale Law Journal. He began his career in public service as an assistant Philadelphia district attorney. While serving in that position, he was named assistant counsel on the Warren Commission investigation into President Kennedy’s assassination. Two years later, Senator Specter was elected district attorney of Philadelphia at the age of 35.

For his years of service, hard work, accomplishments, devotion to the law and hard fought battles for his constituents, Senator Arlen Specter is the first recipient of the Judge Edward R. Becker Award Citizenship Award.