Geraldine A. Ferraro, the first female vice presidential candidate on a national party ticket, will be the keynote speaker for CWRU's 2003 commencement convocation May 18.

Elected to Congress from New York in 1978, Ferraro served three terms in the House of Representatives, has served as United States ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission since 1993 and was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1994.

Ferraro is president of G&L Strategies, a management consulting firm that provides corporations and global organizations counsel on creating productive and safe workplace environments, improves relationships of corporations with government and non-governmental organizations and develops initiatives designed to position corporations as responsible global citizens.

While in Congress, Ferraro was assigned to committees on public works, post office and civil service, budget and aging. She also spearheaded efforts to achieve passage of the Equal Rights Amendment. She also sponsored the Women's Economic Equity Act.

From 1996-1998, Ferraro was a co-host of Crossfire, a political interview program, on CNN. She also was a partner in the CEO Perspective Group, a consulting firm that advises top executives. In 1994, she was appointed the United States Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission by President Clinton and served in that position through 1996.

In addition to serving as the U.S. ambassador to the UN Human Rights Commission from 1994 to 1996, Ferraro was named a public delegate in February 1993 and was the alternate United States delegate to the World Conference on Human Rights held in Vienna in June 1993. She also served as vice-chair to the U.S. Delegation at the Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing, September 1995.

Ferraro is a board member of the National Democratic Institute of International Affairs and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She is currently a political analyst for FOX News and a columnist for the New York Times Syndicate.

Before entering politics, Ferraro taught elementary school in the New York City Public School system for five years. During that time, she also put herself through Fordham Law School at night. After spending thirteen years at home raising her three children, she joined the Queens County District Attorney's Office. There, she started the Special Victims Bureau, supervising the prosecution of sex crimes, child abuse, domestic violence and violent crimes against senior citizens.

Ferraro has honorary degrees from a number of colleges and universities nationwide. She currently serves as a board member of the Fordham Law School Board of Visitors, the Bertarelli Foundation, the National Italian American Foundation, the Board of Advisors of the National Breast Cancer Research Fund, the Pension Rights Center and the National Women's Health Resource Center.

In addition to numerous articles, Ferraro has written the books Ferraro, My Story, which recounts the 1984 campaign, Changing History: Women, Power and Politics and Framing a Life: A Family Memoir.

Ferraro was born in Newburgh, N.Y. She and her husband, realtor John Zaccaro, have three children, Donna, John and Laura and four grandchildren.