Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter Kathy Mattea, who studied engineering and chemistry at West Virginia University before getting her big break in Nashville, will join four other successful individuals with WVU ties Friday, May 11, in accepting honorary degrees during the 7 p.m. Commencement Honors Convocation at the WVU Coliseum.

The other 2007 honorees are: Thomas L. Harrison, chairman and chief executive officer of Diversified Agency Services and WVU alumnus; Robert L. Reynolds, former vice chairman and chief operating officer of Fidelity Investments and WVU alumnus; Robert R. Ruffolo Jr., president of research and development at Wyeth Pharmaceuticals and a senior vice president at Wyeth Corp.; and Murray Sidman, professor emeritus at Northeastern University and former visiting scholar in the Department of Psychology at WVU .

Kathleen A. Mattea, Doctor of Humane Letters

Born in South Charleston, Mattea grew up in Cross Lanes and attended WVU from 1976-78.

It was a family tradition,she said.Both my brothers went there and cousins, too. I had been making trips to Morgantown since I was a kid for football games and such, and I had a sense of the place. It felt like where I belonged. We were Mountaineers.

Mattea did not major in music, opting for engineering and eventually switching to education with an emphasis on physics and chemistry. But music was an important part of her college experience.

When I was at WVU , I played a lot of music,she said.I met up with some folks playing music at a gathering in front of the fireplace in the lobby of Arnold Hall, where I lived my freshman year. I wound up being invited to sit inmy roomies tipped them off that I could sing and playand that moment changed my life. I sat with these people and learned tons of songs, through a folk tradition, in a circle just following along.

She added,They all had huge record collections. I was opened up into all kinds of music, from Barbara Streisand to Wings to John Hartford and Doc Watson. I was like a dry sponge, just soaking it all up. But it was in my spare time that it all happened.

Music became her passion, and soon she had gigs around Morgantown.

By my sophomore year, we had become an official �€~group,playing around town and writing some of our own songs,she said.I got so caught up in singing and playing music that I didn’t have time for much else.

In those days, venues included the Last Resort, College Inn in Sunnyside and the basement of a local Catholic church.

Favorite WVU memories include sitting on the hill outside Arnold Hall and watching sunsets.

They were spectacular,Mattea said.Another big fave thing to do was drive over to Ruby and Ketchys for fried chicken, and in the winter occasionally, wed get to sit by the fire.

Oh, yeah. One more thing I remember,Mattea added.I have fond memories of turning my student ID in after dinner, as �€~collateralto borrow a dinner tray, which wed take outside and use like a makeshift sled in winter to slide down Price Street, in front of Arnold Hall. Friends these days cant believe we actually did that, and Ive often wondered whether the practice is still going on. It was a great way to blow off steam in the middle of a snowy winter.

Mattea said goodbye to WVU and Morgantown in September 1978 to pursue a career in the Nashville music industry, but she will always cherish her time at WVU .

I did a lot of growing up during those years,she said.I remember thinking that school was great, and I enjoyed it, but I was really learning about life, about independence, about everything from making friends, to managing my time, to dealing with responsible money management.

I love the place so much,she continued.I always loved the way the University was woven into the town and how the buildings were nestled into the hills. I loved it that you walked into the chemistry building from the ground floor on one side and from the third floor on the other.

Morgantown and WVU was the place where I came of age,she said.And it seemed, at that moment, that anything you wanted to know, anything you wanted to learn about, academically or in the larger sense of the world, was there at your fingertips. It was life changing on every level.

The former WVU student, who also sold cheese at Hickory Farms in Mountaineer Mall during college, signed with Mercury in 1983. Two years later,Love at the Five and Dimepaved her way to stardom.

Matteas music is unique in that it combines folk, bluegrass and gospel. She has won two Grammy awards and was named female vocalist of the year twice by the Country Music Association. Her song,Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses,was named CMA Single of the Year.

For her latest project,Coal,the West Virginia native recorded a collection of Appalachian mining songs produced by Marty Stuart. The album is expected to be released in the fall.

Also known for her humanitarian efforts, she has been an active participant in efforts to fight alcohol and drug addiction, end hunger and find missing children, among other causes. She was the first recipient of the Harvard AIDS InstituteAIDS Awareness Leadership Awardin 1994, and she received theMinnie Pearl Humanitarian Awardin 2001. One of her latest causes is speaking out about global warming.

While Mattea is a well-known national performer and humanitarian, she has never forgotten her roots. She performs concerts, teaches and is involved with the Arts in Education movement in West Virginia as well as nationally.

Last May, she gave the keynote presentation and acoustic performance at the WVU Creative Arts Center for the Appalachian Education InitiativesCentral Appalachian Leaders Summit on The Arts in Education.

Mattea said she was honored to be invited to WVU s commencementand receiving an honorary degree is afull-circle moment.

You leave because you feel a calling deep in your heart, in your gut,she said.You step off the track thats been laid out for you because you feel some clear, but terrifying sense that its the right move. And then, all these years later, someone comes to you and says, �€~Hey, we think youve made some great achievements in the profession youve chosen and the way youve lived your life, and we want to give you an honorary degree to recognize that fact.It’s a lovely validation of a choice I made at a young age. My only regret is that my folks have passed on, both of them. They would have loved this moment.

As for advice for the Class of 2007, Mattea urged graduates to pay close attention to the activities thatmake time disappearthat they get lost in for the sheer pleasure of them.

Thats important stuff whether you choose to make that a career or not,she said.And, as much as possible, try to make decisions from the inside out, from that quiet stillness of center. I believe we all have a voice inside that helps us find our path, but that voice tends to whisper, in my experience. I have to do the work to turn the volume down on everything coming at me from the outsideall the �€~noiseof our culture: advertisements, entertainment, informationso that I can hear that voice. But when I make the time to sit still, even for just 10 minutes every day, so that I can tune in to that voice, it never steers me wrong. Never.

Thomas L. Harrison, Doctor of Humane Letters

Harrison is a WVU graduate who has attained prominence in the world of marketing communication and business.

He received a master of science degree in cell biology and physiology from WVU and began his career at Pfizer Laboratories.

After leaving Pfizer, he worked for an independent health-care advertising agency before co-founding Harrison&Star Business Group. He ran the agency for five years, and during that time, he started a medical education company, a medical public relations group and a direct-to-consumer health-care company.

In 1992, Harrison&Star was acquired by Omnicom, the largest marketing and communications company in the world. Harrison continued to chair his company, as well as Diversified Healthcare Communications, through 1997 when he was appointed president of Diversified Agency Services (DAS).

Harrison is a recognized force in the marketing communications world. His reputation as an expert in branding and integrated marketing communications is well recognized and in high demand.

He is also a successful author. His recent book,Instinct: Tapping Your Entrepreneurial DNA to Achieve Your Business Goals,has been highly acclaimed.

Among his many awards and honors is the Ellis Island Medal of Honor given to American citizens who have made significant contributions to society. He is a fellow at the New York Academy of Medicine and a member of the executive committee of the Montefiore Hospital in New York.

Harrison has not forgotten his alma mater, contributing his time, talent and resources to WVU and the Perley Isaac Reed School of Journalism. He has endowed a professorship in journalism, served as commencement speaker and is a member of the WVU Academy of Distinguished Alumni.

Robert L. Reynolds, Doctor of Business Administration

Reynolds is a native of Clarksburg who, as vice chairman and chief operating officer of Fidelity Investments, has achieved national and international prominence in his field.

After graduating from WVU in 1974 with a degree in business and economics, he quickly rose in the ranks of finance at North Carolina National Bank and Bank of America.

In 1989, Reynolds began his career at Fidelity where he emerged as an influential leader in the growing field of mutual fund management, often credited with the direction and success of Fidelity in The Wall Street Journal and financial magazines.

His leadership enabled Fidelity to become a leader in this and other business areas, growing the assets of the organization from less than $3 billion in 1989 to more than $300 billion in 401K assets in 2000. This remarkable growth has positioned Fidelity as possibly the largest investment firm in the world and a steward of the wealth and financial security for millions of Americans.

Reynoldsphilanthropic contributions to his alma mater are significant. In addition to serving on the board of the WVU Foundation and the Foundations investment committee, he is also a member of the Woodburn Circle Society, recognizing contributors who have made a gift of more than $100,000 in a single fiscal year.

His generous contributions have benefited the College of Business and Economics and the Mountaineer Athletic Club. He is also a member of WVU s Academy of Distinguished Alumni.

Robert R. Ruffolo Jr., Doctor of Science

Ruffolo completed his undergraduate training in pharmacy and has a doctorate in pharmacology. An internationally recognized pharmacologist, he is the president of research and development at Wyeth Pharmaceuticals and a senior vice president of Wyeth Corp.

His creativity and insight led to the pioneering research responsible for the development of carvedilol, now considered the standard of care for congestive heart failure. Carvedilol dramatically improved the quality of life and survival rates for patients with moderate to severe heart failure.

Ruffolos leadership is responsible for bringing other innovative drugs to the market for the treatment of Parkinsons disease, hypertension and angina. The impact of these drugs, developed under his leadership, has reduced the burden of these devastating diseases not only in the United States, but worldwide.

With Ruffolos guidance, Wyeth recently provided WVU with an $11.8 million award to support the Strategic Research Plan at the Robert C. Byrd Health Sciences Center. The gift has made it possible for the Health Sciences Center to accelerate the recruitment of top scientists conducting research in the areas of heart and vascular diseases, diabetes and obesity, neuropharmacology of human behavior and respiratory diseases, all of which are major health issues in West Virginia.

Murray Sidman, Doctor of Science

Sidman, professor emeritus at Northeastern University, has made distinguished contributions to the advancement of psychological science through his innovative research and teaching over the last half century and his contributions to the understanding and treatment of children and adults with developmental delays.

He has held appointments at many of Americas finest research centers and universities, including Harvard Medical School, Johns Hopkins University Medical School and the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.

His awards include lifetime achievement awards from the American Psychological Association (APA) and the Association for Behavior Analysis. For his contributions to the understanding of learning in adults and children with developmental delays, he received the National Association for Retarded Citizens Distinguished Research Award and the APA Division for Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities Edgar Doll Award foroutstanding research and sustained contributions to the understanding of mental retardation and developmental disabilities.

His influence on many of WVU s graduates has been significant. His ideas permeate many of the courses taken by students of psychology at WVU who specialize in clinical psychology and behavior analysis.

In 1986, Sidman was a visiting scholar in the Department of Psychology at WVU . His favorable comments over the years, in many academic and professional settings, about the quality of the WVU faculty and graduate training at WVU have helped the department recruit high-quality graduate students and establish its national reputation.