“She can talk to anyone, and she listens like she is hearing the most important thing in the world. She understands the things that everyday people care about, and she knows how to motivate politicians to do the right things about them.” (Kathleen Prochaska ’56, of Kansas, speaking about Kathleen Sebelius in the Fall 2002 Trinity magazine.)

Listening, caring, motivating, leading – these are the traits that the people of the Great State of Kansas recognized in our classmate, friend and alumna Kathleen Gilligan Sebelius when they elected her Governor of Kansas in November 2002. She is one of only 23 women ever to serve as governor of a state in the United States, 16 of whom were elected, with five currently serving.

Governor Sebelius’ political career arose from her deep commitment to community service and finding ways to meet the needs of the people in her community. When a seat opened up in her district for the Kansas House of Representatives, her reputation as a community advocate made her a natural candidate for elected office. She leveraged her service on such distinguished and bipartisan efforts as chair of the Governor’s Blue Ribbon Panel on Prison Overcrowding and member of the Governmental Ethics Commission, the Kansas Children’s Commission and the Kansas Natural Resources Council, among other positions. She served in the Kansas House for seven years until her election to the Office of Insurance Commissioner in 1994.

As Insurance Commissioner of Kansas from 1994 to 2002, she focused on consumer protection. She advocated better coverage for childbirth issues, including mandated coverage for 48-hour hospital stays following childbirth, cleared bureaucratic roadblocks and red tape for seniors navigating the Medicare and prescription drug coverage systems, and cracked down on gender discrimination in insurance coverage.

Kathleen Gilligan was already well versed in politics when she took up her major in Political Science at Trinity. The daughter of Ohio Governor John Gilligan, Kathleen came to Trinity at the end of the 1960s, an era of civil rights demonstrations and antiwar protests, women’s liberation and changes in the Church. These forces, together with Trinity’s ideals of justice and honor, compassion and servant leadership, shaped Kathleen and her classmates in ways that have transformed countless other lives.

While deeply devoted to the people of Kansas, Kathleen’s first love is her family, and she is an exemplar of the modern Trinity Woman, achieving greatly for her community and state while keeping her personal priorities in clear focus.

For her remarkable achievement of election as Governor of Kansas, for her devotion to justice and service to all in her community, and for reflecting the ideals of her alma mater, Trinity College is pleased to bestow upon Kathleen Gilligan Sebelius ’70 the degree of Doctor of Laws, honoris causa.

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