Friday, January 2, 2009

Senator Claiborne Pell Dies

"Translate ideas into actions and help people."

I would like to post a brief tribute to former Senator Claiborne Pell, (D-Rhode Island) who created a program that has become known as the Pell Grant that helped tens of millions of poor and middle class college students obtain a college education. (I would never have been able to earn a degree without the basic education benefits program).

Senator Pell once told an interviewer that the GI Bill provided him with the inspiration to create the basic education opportunity grant program.

"Claiborne Pell, the quirky, patrician former senator from Rhode Island who created the college grant program that bears his name and wrote the legislation that established the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, died just after midnight Thursday at his Newport, R.I., home. He was 90."

The New York Times article can be read here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/02/us/politics/02pell.html?_r=1&partner=msnbcpolitics&emc=rss

No comments:

Post a Comment