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The Lincoln Center for Applied Ethics, housed in The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, is establishing a new lecture series to raise awareness of disability and promote a positive disability culture at Arizona State University.

The series is named the Lawrence J. and Virginia Devlin Bolmarcich Memorial Lecture, after the parents of Sarah Bolmarcich, an associate teaching professor in the School of International Letters and Cultures.

When her mother passed away in 2022, Bolmarcich began envisioning a way to memorialize how her parents lived and promote their core principles of fairness for women, minorities and those with disabilities.

For at least six generations, their family members, including Sarah herself, were diagnosed with inherited hearing loss. 

Lawrence was a second-generation American and first-generation college student, earning his bachelor’s degree from Drexel University in 1967 and a master’s degree from St. Joseph’s University in 1974. He served as a civil engineer for the United States Army and then the U.S. Navy. He passed away in 1997. 

Virginia was from generations of Irish Americans in Philadelphia and was the first to attend college at the University of Pennsylvania College for Women. She later attended medical school and held a successful career as a diagnostic radiologist.

The annual series will feature a lecture and workshops that actively promote a disability-inclusive culture at ASU, which is embedded in the institutional fabric of the university’s charter.