Northeastern's annual MLK Convocation - Hon. Roderick Ireland

Photo by Ted Fitzgerald Judge Roderick Ireland, Chief Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court, takes the oath of office administered by Governor Deval Patrick while his 93-year-old mother, Helen Ireland, holds the bible.

Northeastern University's annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Convocation will be held on Wednesday, January 19, 2011 at 11:45AM in Blackman Auditorium. Sponsored by the university's John D. O'Bryant African-American Institute, this year's keynote speaker will be the Honorable Roderick Ireland, PHD'98, H'98, recently confirmed as the chief justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.

Appointed to the high court in 1997, Justice Ireland grew up in Springfield, Massachusetts. He earned his bachelor's degree from Lincoln University, a JD from Columbia University Law School, and an LLM from Harvard Law School. He received a PhD in law, policy and society at Northeastern, where he has also served as a member of the faculty since 1978. He is the first African American justice in the 318-year history of the court.