COLUMBUS – Daniel Katz, board chairman and co-founder of the Rainforest Alliance, will be the speaker for the College of Humanities Baccalaureate on Thursday, June 7. The event, which celebrates of the achievements of students, faculty and alumni, begins at 3:30 p.m. in the Wexner Center Film Video Theatre, 1871 N. High St.

An alumnus of the College of Humanities , Katz co-founded the Rainforest Alliance in New York City in 1986. The organization has grown tremendously under Katz’s leadership, and now has a current annual budget of $6 million, four offices and a staff of over 50 professionals around the world. The board of directors includes both noted conservationists and business professionals. Guided by Katz’s vision of creating economically viable and socially desirable alternatives to deforestation, the Rainforest Alliance has become a pioneer in collaborative, practical conservation.

Among the most successful programs Katz has helped to initiate are the SmartWood and Conservation Agriculture Network certification programs. SmartWood was the first worldwide timber certification program and has certified millions of acres of forestland to date. The Conservation Agriculture Network, which won the 1995 Peter F. Drucker Award for Nonprofit Innovation, was the first conservation certification program for agricultural products. In 1987, Katz and the Rainforest Alliance coordinated the first major international conference on rainforest conservation.

Katz has received several awards, including the Kellogg National Fellowship Program for Leadership (1989-92), Ohio State University’s College of Humanities Alumni Award of Distinction and Alumni Association William Oxley Thompson Award, and the State of Ohio/Province of Hubei Fellowship for Linguistic Study in China. His published work includes Tales From The Jungle: A Rainforest Reader (1995, Crown Books) and several articles and essays for papers and magazines.

Katz earned his M.B.A. at the Stern School of Business, New York University and a B.A. in Chinese from The Ohio State University. He studied at the Central China University of Science and Technology (Hubei, PRC). Katz serves as a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a board member of To Make the World a Better Place and the World Parks Endowment, and an advisory board member of Earth Love Fund and the National Foreign Language Center. He is currently consulting for a number of philanthropic and nonprofit organizations.

During the Baccalaureate ceremony, two Ohio State University alumni will receive the Humanities Alumni Society (HUMAS) Alumni Awards of Distinction. The Year 2001 winners of these awards are College of Humanities alumni Tobi Skilken Gold (B.A. 1977, Jewish Studies) and Samuel Walker (Ph.D. 1973, History), who will be recognized for their outstanding achievements.

For the past 20 years, Tobi Skilken Gold of COLUMBUS (43209) has immersed herself in Jewish community work, involving herself in organizations such as the Columbus Jewish Federation, the Columbus Commission on Jewish Education, the National Young Leadership Cabinet of the United Jewish Communities, and the Jewish Educational Service of North America. This year she is being honored for her efforts in Jewish education by Congregation Tifereth Israel on behalf of the Jewish Theological Seminary. Gold’s specific focus on education began in the early 1990s with her efforts to institute an enrichment program for high school students at Congregation Tifereth Israel. In 1994, while studying as a participant in the Wexner Heritage Foundation’s two-year Jewish community leadership educational program, she began the intensive work that culminated with the establishment of the Columbus Jewish Day School (CJDS). In August 1998, the school opened with 44 students in grades K-3 in classrooms leased from a Columbus c>ongregation. Today, as CJDS completes its third academic year, 100 students in grades K-5 from as far away as Granville and Zanesville attend class in a building in New Albany. With Gold as its founding president, the day school boasts an innovative integrated curriculum, which incorporates Judaic studies and all aspects of general studies.

Sam Walker is the Isaacson Professor of Criminal Justice at the University of Nebraska at Omaha (68132), where he has taught for nearly 30 years. He is the author of 11 books and numerous articles on policing, the history of criminal justice, public policy on crime, and the issues of civil liberties. He has also written books on the control of judicial discretion in the criminal justice system, on “hate crimes,” on race and ethnicity in American criminal justice and on the relationship between rights and the community in American society. Most recently he published a book on the role of citizen oversight in developing police accountability. He has been a Soros Justice Fellow and has won the Bruce Smith Award of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, one of the highest honors conferred by his professional peers. His work has received substantial grants to put into practical application the conclusions of his scholarship, notably in the sensitive area of maintaining police accountability. He has been a paid consultant to the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Justice Department, as part of its investigations of the New Jersey State Police and the Washington, DC police. Walker earned an M.A. in history at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and a doctorate in American Culture at the University of Michigan.

HUMAS also will present an Outstanding Student Award to COLUMBUS (43221) native Rosa Ailabouni, a senior majoring in French, international studies and political science. She has distinguished herself academically and is active in numerous campus activities. She will graduate on June 8 with Honors in the Liberal Arts and with Distinction.

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