List of Williams College Commencement Speakers
Encyclopedia
- 2011 Cory BookerCory BookerCory Anthony Booker is the Mayor of Newark, New Jersey. He is a member of the Democratic Party. Booker is a former Newark City Councilman...
- 2010 Jay McInerneyJay McInerneyJohn Barrett McInerney Jr. is an American writer. His novels include Bright Lights, Big City; Ransom; Story of My Life; Brightness Falls; and The Last of the Savages...
- 2009 Clarence Otis
- 2008 Richard SerraRichard SerraRichard Serra is an American minimalist sculptor and video artist known for working with large-scale assemblies of sheet metal. Serra was involved in the Process Art Movement.-Early life and education:...
- 2007 Katie CouricKatie CouricKatherine Anne "Katie" Couric is an American journalist and author. She serves as Special Correspondent for ABC News, contributing to ABC World News, Nightline, 20/20, Good Morning America, This Week and primetime news specials...
- 2006 Chuck Davis
- 2005 Thomas L. Friedman
- 2004 David HalberstamDavid HalberstamDavid Halberstam was an American Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, author and historian, known for his early work on the Vietnam War, his work on politics, history, the Civil Rights Movement, business, media, American culture, and his later sports journalism.-Early life and education:Halberstam...
- 2003 Eric LanderEric LanderEric Steven Lander is a Professor of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , a member of the Whitehead Institute, and director of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard who has devoted his career toward realizing the promise of the human genome for medicine. He is co-chair of U.S...
- 2002 Morris DeesMorris DeesMorris Seligman Dees, Jr. is the co-founder and chief trial counsel for the Southern Poverty Law Center , and a former direct mail marketeer for book publishing. Along with his law partner, Joseph J...
- 2001 Robert RubinRobert RubinRobert Edward Rubin served as the 70th United States Secretary of the Treasury during both the first and second Clinton administrations. Before his government service, he spent 26 years at Goldman Sachs eventually serving as a member of the Board, and Co-Chairman from 1990-1992...
- 2000 George MitchellGeorge J. MitchellGeorge John Mitchell, Jr., is the former U.S. Special Envoy for Middle East Peace under the Obama administration. A Democrat, Mitchell was a United States Senator who served as the Senate Majority Leader from 1989 to 1995...
- 1999 Christopher ReeveChristopher ReeveChristopher D'Olier Reeve was an American actor, film director, producer, screenwriter, author and activist...
- 1998 Yo-Yo MaYo-Yo MaYo-Yo Ma is an American cellist, virtuoso, and orchestral composer. He has received multiple Grammy Awards, the National Medal of Arts in 2001 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011...
- 1997 Grace PaleyGrace PaleyGrace Paley was an American-Jewish short story writer, poet, and political activist.-Biography:Grace Paley was born in the Bronx to Isaac and Manya Ridnyik Goodside, who anglicized the family name from Gutseit on immigrating from Ukraine. Her father was a doctor. The family spoke Russian and...
- 1996 George H. W. BushGeorge H. W. BushGeorge Herbert Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 41st President of the United States . He had previously served as the 43rd Vice President of the United States , a congressman, an ambassador, and Director of Central Intelligence.Bush was born in Milton, Massachusetts, to...
- 1995 Bernice Johnson ReagonBernice Johnson ReagonBernice Johnson Reagon is a singer, composer, scholar, and social activist, who founded the a cappella ensemble Sweet Honey in the Rock in 1973.-Early life and education:...
- 1994 Kirk VarnedoeKirk VarnedoeJohn Kirk Train Varnedoe was born and raised in Savannah, Georgia and was an American art historian and writer, a Professor of the History of Art at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, and a noted curator of painting and sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.-Life:He studied...
- 1993 Jim LehrerJim LehrerJames Charles "Jim" Lehrer is an American journalist and the executive editor and former news anchor for PBS NewsHour on PBS, known for his role as a frequent debate moderator during elections...
- 1992 John Hope FranklinJohn Hope FranklinJohn Hope Franklin was a United States historian and past president of Phi Beta Kappa, the Organization of American Historians, the American Historical Association, and the Southern Historical Association. Franklin is best known for his work From Slavery to Freedom, first published in 1947, and...
- 1991 Guido Calabresi
- 1990 Michael DukakisMichael DukakisMichael Stanley Dukakis served as the 65th and 67th Governor of Massachusetts from 1975–1979 and from 1983–1991, and was the Democratic presidential nominee in 1988. He was born to Greek immigrants in Brookline, Massachusetts, also the birthplace of John F. Kennedy, and was the longest serving...
- 1989 Johnnetta Cole
- 1988 Henry CisnerosHenry CisnerosHenry Gabriel Cisneros is a politician and businessman. A Democrat, Cisneros served as the 10th Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the administration of President Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1997...
- 1987 Meg GreenfieldMeg GreenfieldMary Ellen Greenfield was a Washington Post and Newsweek editorial writer and a Washington, D.C. insider known for her wit and for being reclusive....
- 1986 Zbigniew BrzezinskiZbigniew BrzezinskiZbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski is a Polish American political scientist, geostrategist, and statesman who served as United States National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981....
- 1985 Stephen Jay GouldStephen Jay GouldStephen Jay Gould was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science. He was also one of the most influential and widely read writers of popular science of his generation....
- 1984 Neil SimonNeil SimonNeil Simon is an American playwright and screenwriter. He has written numerous Broadway plays, including Brighton Beach Memoirs, Biloxi Blues, and The Odd Couple. He won the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play Lost In Yonkers. He has written the screenplays for several of his plays that...
- 1983 Robert ColesRobert ColesMartin Robert Coles is an American author, child psychiatrist, and professor at Harvard University.-Life and career:...
- 1981 Donald McHenryDonald McHenryDonald Franchot McHenry is a former American diplomat. He was the United States Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations from September 1979 until January 20, 1981.-Biography:...
- 1980 Keith Griffin
- 1978 Anthony LewisAnthony LewisAnthony Lewis is a prominent liberal intellectual, writing for The New York Times op-ed page and The New York Review of Books, among other publications. He was previously a columnist for the Times . Before that he was London bureau chief , Washington, D.C...
- 1975 Barbara JordanBarbara JordanBarbara Charline Jordan was an American politician who was both a product and a leader, of the Civil Rights movement. She was the first African American elected to the Texas Senate after Reconstruction and the first southern black female elected to the United States House of Representatives...
- 1970 John LindsayJohn LindsayJohn Vliet Lindsay was an American politician, lawyer and broadcaster who was a U.S. Congressman, Mayor of New York City, candidate for U.S...