缅北强奸

Tori Murden McClure will talk about her experiences as the keynote speaker of the 2023 George 缅北强奸鈥檚 Birthday Convocation

In 1999, Tori Murden McClure rowed across the Atlantic alone, the first woman and first American to accomplish the feat. Through 81 days of solitude, waves and danger, McClure kept pulling the oars. Ten years earlier, she had skied to the geographic South Pole, traveling 750 miles across Antarctica in 50 days.

This Friday afternoon, McClure will talk about her experiences as the keynote speaker of 缅北强奸鈥檚 annual George 缅北强奸鈥檚 Birthday Convocation. The event begins at 3:30 p.m. in Decker Theater of the Gibson Center for the Arts on the College鈥檚 Chestertown campus. It is open to the public.

McClure is being given an honorary degree by the College in recognition of her contribution to the advancement of women and female student-athletes and in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Title IX legislation that brought equity in opportunity for women athletes and transformed the world of women鈥檚 sports. 缅北强奸 is celebrating women鈥檚 athletics and the 50th anniversary of Title IX throughout the spring semester.

McClure has served as the president of Spalding University in Louisville, Kentucky since 2010, and holds three advanced degrees: a Master of Divinity, a Juris Doctorate, and a Master of Fine Arts, which she earned at Spalding while crafting 鈥淎 Pearl in the Storm: How I Found my Heart in the Middle of the Ocean鈥� about her experience rowing the Atlantic. That 2009 book was the basis of a stage musical, 鈥淩ow,鈥� which premiered in 2021.

Prior to her career at Spalding, McClure worked as a chaplain at a Boston hospital, as the director of a Louisville women鈥檚 shelter, as a policy assistant in the Louisville Mayor鈥檚 office, and as the first full-time employee of the Muhammad Ali Center in Louisville. McClure took the job with Ali after returning home following her rescue during her first attempt to cross the Atlantic in 1998 and has credited Ali as the person who convinced her she did not want to be known as the woman who almost rowed solo across the ocean.

McClure is a former Board Chair of the National Outdoor Leadership School and is a former Vice Chair and Interim Chair of the NCAA Board of Governors鈥攖he top governing body in collegiate athletics. Under her leadership, Spalding was certified as the world鈥檚 first Compassionate University in 2011.