Alumna Rosa A. Clemente is the Green Party's vice presidential candidate for 2008. Her running mate is Cynthia McKinney, the former Georgia congresswoman and a Frank H.T. Rhodes Class of '56 University Professor at Cornell from 2003-06. The Green Party captured less than 1 percent of the vote in the 2004 U.S. presidential election.

Clemente, who hails from the South Bronx, is a community organizer, journalist, hip-hop activist and entrepreneur. During her time at Cornell, where she received a master of professional studies degree in Africana studies from the College of Arts and Sciences, she founded La Voz Boriken, an organization that supports Puerto Rican political prisoners and independence for Puerto Rico.

Her master's thesis, "The Political Development of the Young Lords Party: 1969-1974," examined the effects of U.S. colonialism on Puerto Rico.

In 1995 Clemente developed the Know Thy Self Media Messengers speakers bureau and presented workshops and lectures at more than 200 colleges, universities, high schools and prisons. She has produced three major hip-hop activism tours. In 2003 Clemente helped form the National Hip-Hop Political Convention, attended by more than 3,000 activists.

On her Web site Clemente writes: "I hope that my vice presidential run will inspire all people to recognize they have more than two choices. The time has come to stop talking about what we have to do, but do it by building a third party. I hope you join me on this journey."