HU Alumna, Judge to Speak at Founder’s Day

Hampton, VA -Hampton University will welcome the Honorable Allyson K. Duncan, judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, as its 116th Annual Founder’s Day speaker on Jan. 25 at 11:30 a.m. in Ogden Hall.

Founder’s Day activities also will include the commemorative wreath placing ceremony at the gravesite of the University’s founder, Gen. Samuel Chapman Armstrong, in the HU Cemetery at 9:30 a.m.

During the ceremony HU President William R. Harvey will present honorary degrees to Dr. Ellamae Simmons, HU Class of 1940, and the Honorable Douglas H. Palmer, HU Class of 1973.  Simmons, a retired physician with 30 years of medical service, was the first female African-American physician hired by the Kaiser Permanente Medical Plan in San Francisco, Calif.  Palmer has served as the first African-American mayor of Trenton, N.J., since 1990.

A native of Durham, N.C., Duncan is a 1972 graduate of HU and Duke University School of Law.  She is the first African-American woman ever to serve on the 4th Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals.  In 2003, she became the first African-American and only the third female president of the North Carolina Bar Association.

Prior to joining the 4th Circuit, Duncan was a partner in the Raleigh, N.C., offices of Kilpatrick Stockton, LLP where she concentrated her practice in the areas of government relations and utility matters, primarily involving energy.   She has also served as a member of the North Carolina Utilities Commission, the North Carolina Court of Appeals, and as an assistant professor of law at North Carolina Central University.

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