Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy Appointment of Rev. Theodore Hesburgh as a Member and Chairman.

The President today announced the appointment of Rev. Theodore Hesburgh as a member and Chairman of the Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy. He replaces Reubin Askew, who has resigned from the Commission.

Father Hesburgh, 62, is Chairman of the U.S. Delegation to the United Nations Conference on Science and Technology for Development. He was president of the University of Notre Dame from 1952 to 1977.

He was born May 25, 1917, in Syracuse, N.Y. He attended the University of Notre Dame from 1934 to 1937 and received a Ph. B. degree in 1940 from Gregorian University in Rome. He attended Holy Cross College from 1940 to 1943 and received an S.T.D. degree in 1945 from Catholic University. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1943.

From 1943 to 1944, he was chaplain for the National Training School for Boys in Washington, D.C. From 1945 to 1947, he was chaplain to veterans at the University of Notre Dame, and from 1948 to 1949, he was assistant professor of religion, then head of the department of religion. He was executive vice president of Notre Dame from 1949 to 1952.

The Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy was created by law to "study and evaluate existing laws, policies and procedures governing the admission of immigrants and refugees to the United States and to make such administrative and legislative recommendations to the President and to the Congress as are appropriate." The Commission's final report is due on September 30, 1980.

The law creating the Commission was signed October 5, 1978. It is a 16-member commission. Four of the members are appointed by the President, four by the Speaker of the House from the membership of the House Judiciary Committee, and four by the President pro tem of the Senate from the membership of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The other four members are the Secretary of State, the Attorney General, the Secretary of Labor, and the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare. The President appointed his four members March 22, 1979. They were Askew (Chairman), Rose Matsui Ochi (executive assistant to Mayor Tom Bradley, Los Angeles), Joaquin Francisco Otero (international vice president of the Brotherhood of Railway and Airline Clerks), and Cruz Reynoso (associate justice of the Third Appellate District in Sacramento, Calif.).