Albany, N.Y. (May 8, 2012) — Robert B. Reich, economic analyst, noted author, and former presidential advisor will address distance education graduates who will convene for Excelsior College's 41st Annual Commencement on July 13, 2012 at the Empire State Plaza Convention Center.

Reich has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. He also served on President-Elect Obama's transition advisory board. He has written 14 books, including The Work of Nations, which has been translated into 22 languages; the best-sellers Locked in the Cabinet and The Future of Success, which in 2002 was ranked by BusinessWeek magazine as the #2 best-selling business book. He has written more than 200 articles on the global economy, the changing nature of work and the centrality of human capital. Reich also writes a weekly, nationally syndicated column that focuses on the economy and appears in papers ranging from the San Francisco Chronicle to The Kansas City Star. He is a consultant to many governments and corporations.

Excelsior, founded in 1971, focuses on the education needs of working adults and has a student body of approximately 33,000, about one-third of which identify themselves as minorities. As a regionally accredited, nonprofit distance learning institution, Excelsior helps remove the barriers that adult students face in pursuing a college education, including time, place, and cost. It offers more efficient and affordable access to degree completion through multiple avenues: its own online courses and college-level proficiency examinations, and the acceptance in transfer of credit from other colleges and universities as well as corporate and military training programs that have been evaluated for college-level credit by the American Council on Education's College Credit Recommendation Service (ACE CREDIT).

"We are extremely pleased that one of America's leading economic analysts and presidential advisor to three administrations will bring his unique perspective to our commencement ceremony," said Dr. John Ebersole, Excelsior College president. "Our graduates are working adults who have had to balance life's challenges – family and employment commitments – while pursuing their degrees. Dr. Reich's knowledge of economics and America's workers will resonate with this audience."

Reich is co-founding editor of The American Prospect magazine. His commentaries can be heard weekly on public radio's "Marketplace." His columns appear frequently in the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and other major national newspapers. He appears several times a week on CNBC.

In 2003, Reich was awarded the prestigious Vaclav Havel Vision Foundation Prize for his pioneering work in economic and social thought. In 2004, he was named one of America's three most influential opinion leaders on business and the economy. In 2008, The Wall Street Journal named him one of the nation's top ten thought leaders. In 2008, Time magazine named him one of the ten most successful cabinet secretaries of the century.

He earned a BA from Dartmouth College, an MA from Oxford University where he was a Rhodes Scholar, and a JD from Yale Law School.

Each year for Excelsior College's Commencement draws hundreds of graduates, friends, and family from around the country and from abroad. For many, events taking place July 12-14, marked by Commencement itself, offer students their first face-to-face contact with fellow graduates, faculty, and Excelsior staff. Live streaming the ceremony over the Internet enables more than another thousand individuals who have earned their Excelsior degrees this past year to "participate" in the event, including active duty military personnel stationed around the world.