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Named

one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine,

Cory A. Booker, the mayor of Newark, N.J., has been selected to give the

2013 Commencement address at Washington University in St. Louis,

according to Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton.

Wrighton announced Booker as the Commencement speaker during the annual senior class toast April 3 in Brookings Quadrangle.

The

university’s 152nd Commencement ceremony will begin at 8:30 a.m.

Friday, May 17, in Brookings Quadrangle on the Danforth Campus.



Booker,

43, who is credited with helping revitalize New Jersey’s largest city

with his hands-on and innovative approach, will address approximately

2,800 members of the Class of 2013 and their friends and family members.

During the ceremony, Booker, a Rhodes Scholar and Yale law graduate, will receive an honorary doctor of laws degree from WUSTL.

This

will be his second time speaking at Washington University. Booker

delivered an Assembly Series lecture on the significance of community

service in fall 2007.

“I am honored that Mayor Cory Booker will be

addressing this year’s graduates of Washington University,” said Wrighton. “Mayor Booker is a person who, like our

graduates, has had extraordinary educational opportunities. I am deeply

impressed with how, in his young career, he has been able to put his

education to use as one of America’s most prominent civic leaders.

“It

is my great expectation that our graduates will use their Washington

University education, much like Mayor Booker has used his, to help bring

benefit to their future communities.”

Tackling significant challenges with innovation

In his second term as Newark’s

mayor, Booker has been instrumental in more than doubling the rate of

affordable housing production; creating the city’s largest expansion of

parks and recreation spaces in over a century; and bringing more than $1

billion of new economic development into the city, including its first

office towers and hotels in decades.

He has attracted national

attention for his education reform efforts to improve city schools;

public safety initiatives to reduce crime; and innovative programs to

help men and women leaving prison find jobs and reconnect with their

community.

Booker also has gained wide attention for implementing new

technologies in the city, ranging from creating the state’s largest

wireless network of crime-fighting technology — including cameras and

gunshot detection — to using social media platforms such as Twitter and

Facebook.

An avid social media user, Booker has more than 1.3 million followers on Twitter.

Booker

has been recognized by numerous media outlets, including Time selecting

him to its 2011 Time 100, the magazine’s annual list of the 100 most

influential people in the world.

Achieving social justice through action

Inspired

at an early age by his parents — both civil rights activists in the

1960s — he has dedicated his life to achieving social justice through

individual action.

After graduating from law school in 1997, he

moved into a crime-ridden Newark public apartment complex that had

become known for its decrepit condition, including rat infestations and

broken elevators and smoke detectors.

A resident for eight years,

including a short time while mayor, Booker led the project’s tenants in

their fight for improvements in housing, maintenance and security.

At 29 years old, he was elected to Newark’s City Council in an upset victory over a four-term incumbent.

While

serving as a city councilman from 1998 to 2002, he went on a 10-day

hunger strike to draw attention to rampant drug-dealing in one of

Newark’s worst housing projects, an effort that led to increased police

presence and improved security for residents.

He also spent months

camped out in a trailer in some of the most crime- and drug-infested

areas of the city, bringing attention to inner-city problems and

inspiring residents and businesses to fight against drug dealing and

crime.

Booker ran for mayor unsuccessfully in a contentious race in

2002 that was captured in an Oscar-nominated documentary called Street

Fight.

When Booker ran again in 2006 vowing to reduce the crime rate

and improve education and city services, the community activist won

with a clear mandate of 72 percent of the vote.

As mayor, his

personal involvement in helping improve life for his constituents has

ranged from living on a “food stamp” budget for seven days to raise

awareness of food insecurity, shoveling the driveway of a elderly man

who requested help via the mayor’s Twitter feed, inviting Hurricane

Sandy victims into his home, and saving a woman from a house fire.

Booker

earned a bachelor of arts in political science in 1991 and a master of

arts in sociology in 1992, both from Stanford University, where he

returned in 2012 as its commencement speaker.

While an undergraduate

at Stanford, Booker was elected senior class president, ran a

student-run crisis hotline, organized programs for marginalized youth

and won the university’s highest award for service in 1991.

He also played varsity football and was named to the All-Pacific 10 Academic Team in 1991.

As

a Rhodes Scholar, he earned an honors degree in modern history in 1994

from Oxford University, where he ran a mentoring program for low-income

youth.

While earning a juris doctorate at Yale Law School in 1997, he

operated free legal clinics for low-income residents of New Haven.