CLINTON CLASS OF '16

41 potential public servants get newly minted diplomas

The look on Ashley-Brooke Moses' face was one of astonishment when Clinton School of Public Service Dean Skip Rutherford called her name as winner of this year's Shannon Butler Bridgebuilder Award, the school's highest nonacademic award.

Moses, of Sharpsburg, Ga., was one of 41 Clinton school graduates to receive master of public service degrees on May 15. Former President Bill Clinton gave the keynote speech. But the night before, the students and their families -- some from as far as away as China, Kenya, Venezuela, Liberia, Nigeria and Uganda -- packed the lobby of Sturgis Hall in historic Choctaw Station for a celebratory reception. The class is the 10th to graduate from the school.

The Butler award was established in 2007 in honor of Shannon Butler -- now Shannon Butler Dixon of Fayetteville -- who was deputy director of the Clinton Foundation and instrumental in the opening of the school in 2004.

"She is calm, capable and professional, with a unique ability to display grace under pressure," Rutherford said of Moses.

Kathryn Baxter of Glenside, Pa., received the school's top academic award, and Nouroudine Alassane of Bassila, Benin, got the inaugural Bruce International Student Prize, established by the late Dr. Tom Bruce, founding academic dean. The prize goes to a graduating non-U.S. citizen deemed by the faculty to have most visibly contributed to world peace while at the school.

Over the last decade, students have completed projects in 75 countries on all six inhabited continents.

-- Story and photos by Cyd King

High Profile on 05/22/2016

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