WALTER ANDERSON ‘72

Publisher, Chairman & CEO 

PARADE Publications

Once a high school dropout, Walter Anderson is a champion of the cause of  literacy, a national spokesman for the GED, director of the national Dropout Prevention Fund, and chairman, publisher, and CEO of PARADE, which is the magazine with the largest circulation (37 million) in the world. Anderson, who was editor of PARADE Magazine from 1980 to 2000, is a former investigative reporter whose award-winning articles have appeared widely. He was editor and general manager of The Reporter Dispatch in Westchester prior to joining PARADE in 1977. He has appeared on hundreds of radio and television shows including "Today," "Donahue," "CBS Nightwatch," and the "Sally Jesse Raphael" "show. 

He is the host of the PBS series "Read Together," and the author of four books: Courage is a Three-Letter Word (1986); The Greatest Risk of AH (1988), Read With Me (1990) and The Confidence Course (1997), which is published in seven languages around the world.

Anderson graduated summa cum laude from Mercy in 1972, with a bachelor's in Psychology. He was valedictorian of his class. He served for eight years as chairman of Mercy's Board of Trustees and is now a trustee emeritus. He has received honorary doctorates from Mercy the University of the Pacific, Clemson University, and St. Ambrose's University.

While he has received many honors throughout his career, perhaps his greatest recognition was the 1994 Horatio Alger Award for which he was nominated by the late Norman Vincent Peale. He was also nominated by former President William Clinton to serve as a member of the U.S. National Commission on Libraries and Information Science, a nomination confirmed by the U.S. Senate. He received the Napoleon Hill Foundation Gold Medal for literacy achievement. In 1988, he received the Tree of Life Award from the Jewish National Fund. Proceeds from that ceremony - where the award was presented by Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel - were used to establish the Walter Anderson forest in Israel.