[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 2]
[Senate]
[Page 2061]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       TRIBUTE TO EUGENE M. LANG

  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I am proud, for many reasons, that I am a 
graduate of Swarthmore College. But among those reasons is the fact 
that as a graduate of Swarthmore, I am in the same company as Eugene 
Lang, a 1938 graduate of the college. Few if any of our school's many 
distinguished graduates have matched Gene Lang's ability and 
determination to use his talents in the service of his fellow man.
  If his resume consisted only of his extraordinarily successful 
business career, Gene would be an admirable figure. As founder of REFAC 
Technology Development Corporation, in more than a half a century of 
work, he has helped foster innovation, particularly in manufacturing, 
by helping American inventors and entrepreneurs profit from their 
ideas.
  But what he has done with the earnings from that business is truly 
remarkable.
  In 1981, Gene paid a visit to P.S. 121, the Harlem elementary school 
he had attended as a boy. He was going to speak to a group of sixth 
graders preparing to move on to middle school. Before his speech, he 
spoke with the principal, who told him that three out of every four of 
the students he would address would never finish high school.
  To a man who entered college at the age of 14 and had an advanced 
business degree by his 20th birthday, this was unacceptable. And so he 
told the students that day: Education has allowed me to follow my 
dreams, and it can do the same for you too. He promised each and every 
student that day that if they would work hard, stay in school and 
graduate from high school, he would pay their way to college.
  Gene's promise became the ``I Have a Dream'' Foundation, and it did 
not just benefit the 61 students he addressed that day. It inspired 
similar promises all over the world, more than 200 now, where others 
who have enjoyed the benefits of education have followed Gene's example 
and invested in bringing those benefits to others. In my own State, the 
Kalamazoo Promise, a pledge by a small group of anonymous donors to 
give every Kalamazoo public school student a chance at a college 
education, is just one example of the kinds of programs Gene has 
inspired.
  That is not all. Determined to connect America's universities more 
closely to the societies they serve, in 2001 he founded Project 
Pericles, which provides funding for more than 20 U.S. colleges and 
universities to help them include social responsibility and citizenship 
in their curricula. His donations to Swarthmore, Columbia, the New 
School University and other institutions have made him one of higher 
education's most important benefactors. President Clinton honored him 
in 1996 with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
  This weekend Swarthmore will honor Gene with a celebration of his 
life and work. Fittingly, this won't just be a celebratory dinner. It 
will also be a search for answers, for solutions on how to solve 
problems and improve our society. Symposia will focus on the role of 
social responsibility in education and on the link between social 
change and the arts.
  I want to add my voice to those honoring Eugene Lang this weekend at 
Swarthmore. Thousands of American students have achieved their dreams 
thanks in part to his dedication, persistence and effectiveness. 
Swarthmore pride in Eugene Lang will be on display this weekend. This 
Swarthmorean is proud to call him my friend.

                          ____________________