Richardson, TX, resident Eric Larkin graduates from Saint Michael's College

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Eric Larkin with Heidi St. Peter, Assoc. Dir. of Campus Ministry

COLCHESTER, VT (05/17/2010)(readMedia)-- Eric Larkin, son of Ken and Deborah Larkin of Richardson, Texas, earned a bachelor's degree in biology from Saint Michael's College, during ceremonies May 13, 2010, on the campus of the liberal arts residential Catholic college in Colchester, Vt.

At a graduation-week banquet, Larkin, a 2006 graduate of Jesuit College Preparatory School in Dallas, also was awarded the Frank G. Mahady Memorial Award, presented annually to a senior "who best demonstrates the qualities of moral leadership and social justice …and who demonstrates the potential for making a significant contribution to the causes of peace and social justice."

In presenting the award, Heidi St. Peter, director of the MOVE (Mobilization of Volunteer Efforts) program in the college's Edmundite Campus Ministry Office, described Larkin's deep involvement in overseas and domestic extended service trips. St. Peter said given the demands of his biology major with a minor in French (including a semester abroad in Grenoble, France) Larkin's service resume was all the more remarkable.

With MOVE, Eric participated in Habitat for Humanity, Correctional Volleyball, Temporary Relief (food shelves and transitional housing), outdoor volunteer efforts, senior citizen games and campus blood drives. He joined or led extended week-long service trips during college breaks to rural Kentucky, New Orleans, Long Island, N.Y., Boston and Monterrey, Mexico, and was to join a group traveling to Kolkata, India, in May 2010 right after graduation. Eric also was a volunteer firefighter for Saint Michael's College Fire and Rescue and has worked as a hospital volunteer at a hospital in Dallas. He was assistant campaign organizer/intern last spring for the Vermont Livable Wage Campaign of Burlington's Peace and Justice Center and helped organize the Paid Sick Day Campaign in Vermont. Eric's most lasting legacy, St. Peter said, was a program he conceived and developed called "Fix it With Five." Students each give $5 to a fund, and organizers offer a $10,000 grant contingent on actions promoting sustainable change by alleviating conditions that contribute to a loss of human dignity. His other extra curricular activities on campus included being a peer tutor, tour guide for the Admission office and leader for student spiritual retreats.

Amartya Sen was the featured speaker at the Saint Michael's 103nd commencement. Winner of the 1998 Nobel economics prize for his work on welfare economics, Sen is Thomas W. Lamont University Professor, and Professor of Economics and Philosophy at Harvard University, and was until recently the Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. A prolific author, his work has addressed famine, human development theory, welfare economics, poverty, gender inequality and more.

Called "the conscience of the profession" among economists, Sen addressed the 505 students receiving bachelor's degrees and 52 present to receive master's degrees. He said 18th Century economist Adam Smith is often misread and would not champion totally free markets as most claim he would, since a market economy can reap disaster when unregulated. "The implicit faith in the wisdom of the stand-alone market economy, which is largely responsible for the removal of the established regulations in the United States, turned a blind eye towards the activities of prodigals and projectors, he said, advocating "an appropriate combination of activities of the market and of the state."

For this year's commencement, students wore environmentally "green" recyclable graduation robes for the first time.

Learn What Matters at Saint Michael's College, The Edmundite Catholic liberal arts college, www.smcvt.edu . Saint Michael's provides education with a social conscience, producing graduates with the intellectual tools to lead successful, purposeful lives that will contribute to peace and justice in our world. Founded in 1904 by the Society of St. Edmund and headed by President John J. Neuhauser, Saint Michael's College is located three miles from Burlington, Vermont, one of America's top college towns. It is identified by the Princeton Review as one of the nation's Best 371 Colleges, and will be included in the 2011 Fiske Guide to Colleges. Saint Michael's is one of only 270 colleges and universities nationwide, one of only 20 Catholic colleges, with a Phi Beta Kappa chapter. Saint Michael's has 1,900 undergraduate students, some 500 graduate students and 100 international students. Saint Michael's students and professors have received Rhodes, Woodrow Wilson, Pickering, Guggenheim, Fulbright, and other grants. The college is one of the nation's Best Liberal Arts Colleges as listed in the 2009 U.S. News & World Report rankings.

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