https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/Albany-Law-confers-honorary-degree-on-Alexander-12848140.php
Albany Law confers honorary degree on Alexander Hamilton
Local businessman Swyer also to be honored by school at May commencement
Published 1:33 pm, Thursday, April 19, 2018
ALBANY — Albany Law School will next month honor a pair of notable New Yorkers with honorary degrees as part of its annual commencement ceremony. Only one of them is both dead and the subject of a hit Broadway musical.
That would be Alexander Hamilton, whose descendant Douglas Hamilton will accept the degree on the Founding Father's behalf.
"Alexander Hamilton's ties to the Albany area are significant," said Alicia Ouellette, Albany Law's president and dean, in a news release. "Hamilton studied law and practiced law in Albany. He wrote Federalist (Letter) No. 1 while traveling between Albany and New York City. By conferring this degree, we are acknowledging his impact on the Capital Region and New York's legal community."
Hamilton was the nation's first Secretary of the Treasury, author of a large portion of the Federalist Papers, and an officer in the Revolutionary War who traveled to Albany for the first time in 1777 on behalf of George Washington to meet with General Horatio Gates, to convince Gates to provide Washington with reinforcements.
In 1780, Hamilton married Elizabeth Schuyler at the Schuyler Mansion in Albany with Aaron Burr — who in 1804 kill Hamilton in a duel — was one of the invited guests. After becoming lawyers, both men were regularly in Albany on legal assignments.
Hamilton's biography provided the raw material for Lin-Manuel Miranda's hip-hop musical "Hamilton," a hit on Broadway that is currently spreading across the nation. The show comes to Proctors in Schenectady in August 2019.
The other recipient at the May 18 event is the prominent Capital Region real estate magnate and entrepreneur Edward P. Swyer, president of the Swyer Companies.
"Edward Swyer has been a part of Albany Law School for decades. He has made a significant and lasting impact on Albany Law School's students, on our Clinic and Justice Center, and in the lives of our Clinic's clients," Ouellette said. "He is a true believer in the power of law to build and strengthen communities, and a strong advocate for the important legal work done by our Clinics. I'm honored to award him this degree."
Swyer Companies' signature properties include Stuyvesant Plaza. The school noted that Swyer and his family have been an important part of the law school since before his father's construction company, The L.A. Swyer Co., Inc., built the Schaffer Law Library in 1986.
In addition to the Swyer family's other acts of support for the school, its Lewis A. Swyer Academic Success Program provides additional academic support for first-year law students.
