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May 23
, 2003
Mount
Holyoke’s 166th Commencement Set for Sunday
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Class
emblem design
by Kara Bergeron ’03 |
If
you like nonstop activity, Mount Holyoke will be the place to
be between May 22 and May 25. While commencement, set for Sunday,
May 25, at 10:30 am in Gettell Amphitheater, will be the icing
on the cake, the days that precede the awarding of diplomas will
be several layers thick with receptions, open houses, worship
services, concerts, parties, and tours. Commencement activities
begin Thursday, May 22, with Canoe Sing rehearsal at the Canoe
House, a barbecue for seniors at the president’s house,
and “Unplugged Perspectives,” billed as a “final
lecture” during which three different topics pertaining
to MHC life will be addressed by faculty and students. That event
will be held in Pratt Hall. Events planned for Friday range from
a horticultural walking tour of campus to a commencement concert
to a senior slide show.
Saturday will include
an old- fashioned community picnic,
baccalaureate, fireworks over Lower Lake, and Canoe Sing on Upper
Lake, a tradition originally called Senior Serenade that dates
to 1911. Saturday also brings the much-loved alumnae parade and
laurel chain ceremony. At 9 am (lineup is at 8 am), a marching
band will accompany alumnae and students from Woolley Circle to
Mary Lyon’s grave for a ceremony led by Alumnae Association
President Karen M. Hendricks ’76. The class of 2003 will
carry a garland of laurel, a plant that was a symbol of honor,
achievement, glory, prophecy, and inspiration in antiquity. More
than one hundred years ago, students paid tribute to College founder
Mary Lyon by placing two wreaths of mountain laurel and forget-me-nots
at her grave while singing “Holyoke, Tried and True.”
In 1902, students walked to the grave carrying laurel formed into
a chain, a practice that has become one of the College’s
most cherished commencement traditions. Parade participants will
wear white dresses to show solidarity with the suffragettes who
wore white when campaigning for women’s right to vote. They
will sing “Bread and Roses,” a poem-turned-song that
was taken up by strikers demanding reasonable hours and pay at
a textile mill in Lawrence, Massachusetts, in 1912.
Saturday’s baccalaureate speakers will be faculty members
Lee Bowie, professor of philosophy and incoming dean of the College,
and Amy Martin, assistant professor of English and a faculty member
in the Critical Social Thought Program, and Kelsey K. Hambley
’03.
Presiding at the commencement exercises on Sunday will be President
Joanne V. Creighton. Five hundred eighty-five seniors, making
up one of the largest graduating classes in the College’s
history, are expected to receive degrees during Mount Holyoke’s
166th commencement ceremonies in the amphitheater. In the event
of rain, the event will be held in the Kendall Field House.
Judy Blume, whose novels that center around real issues in her
young readers’ lives have made her one of the best-loved
authors of this century, will deliver the commencement address.
She will receive the degree of doctor of fine arts from the College.
Blume will be joined by four other honorary degree recipients:
Jane Famiano Garvey, the former administrator of the Federal Aviation
Administration, who received a master’s degree from Mount
Holyoke in 1969; Nancy Woodward Hendrie ’54, a pediatrician
and founder of an organization to assist orphaned and homeless
children in Cambodia; James A. Joseph, the former United States
ambassador to South Africa; and Amartya Sen, the winner of the
1998 Nobel Prize in economics.
Delivering the student address at commencement will be Chiara
D. Fuller ’03. Among the graduates will be forty-one Frances
Perkins Scholars, enrolled through the College’s program
for women of nontraditional age who wish to complete the requirements
for a bachelor of arts degree. In addition, four graduates of
the College’s Postbaccalaureate Studies Program will receive
their degrees, two students will receive master’s degrees,
and nineteen students will receive certificates through the International
Guest Student program.
Honorary Degree Recipients
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Commencement
speaker Judy Blume |
Judy Blume,
Doctor of Fine Arts
Judy Blume has written twenty-two books, including three best-selling
novels for adults. Her books have won more than ninety awards
in the United States and abroad and have been translated into
twenty-six languages. Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret
was included on the New York Times list of Outstanding Books of
the Year in 1970, the first of many citations for Blume’s
work. In 1996 she received the Margaret A. Edwards Award for Lifetime
Achievement from the American Library Association. Blume has written
for young children (Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, Superfudge,
Fudge-a-mania), middle-grade children (Blubber, It’s Not
the End of the World, Just as Long as We’re Together), and
young adults (Tiger Eyes, Forever). The Fudge books have been
adapted for television, and she is currently at work on other
TV adaptations of her novels. Blume received a B.S. in education
from New York University in 1961, which named her a Distinguished
Alumna in 1996. She is the founder and trustee of The Kids Fund,
a charitable and educational foundation, and serves on the boards
of the Author’s Guild; the Society of Children’s Book
Writers and Illustrators, for which she sponsors an award for
contemporary fiction; and the National Coalition Against Censorship,
working to protect intellectual freedom.
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Jane
Famiano Garvey ’69 |
Jane Famiano
Garvey ’69
Doctor of Humane Letters
Jane Garvey is the executive vice president and chairman of the
transportation practice at APCO, a global communications consultancy.
She is also a lecturer and research scientist at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology’s Center for Transportation and
Logistics.
Garvey has had a long and distinguished career in transportation
administration. In 1997, after four years with the Federal Highway
Administration, she served as the first-ever five-term administrator
of the Federal Aviation Administration. During her tenure there,
she successfully managed both the Y2K preparedness program and
the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks. She also
initiated Safer Skies, the U.S. aviation community’s safety
agenda. Under her leadership, the FAA moved forward on its plan
to modernize the air traffic control system. Before being named
FAA administrator, Garvey was acting administrator of the Federal
Highway Administration (FHWA). She served as deputy administrator
of FHWA from April 1993 until February 1997.
Garvey’s numerous awards include the National Air Transportation
Association’s Distinguished Service Award, the National
Council of Public-Private Partnerships Leadership Award, and the
Woman of the Year Award from both the Women’s Transportation
Seminar and Women in Politics. She earned a master’s degree
in English instruction at Mount Holyoke in 1969 and later taught
English and history at South Hadley High School.
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Nancy
Woodward Hendrie ’54 |
Nancy Woodward
Hendrie ’54, Doctor of Science
In 1994, after working as a pediatrician in Concord and Carlisle
for more than twenty-six years, Dr. Nancy W. Hendrie left private
practice and began working in Asian orphanages. She later started
her own adoption agency, Adopt Cambodia, which has placed Cambodian
infants and children with more than 200 New England families.
In 1998, Hendrie founded The Sharing Foundation (TSF), to assist
orphaned and homeless children in Cambodia. TSF has also built
two schools and rehabilitated another, where it continues to provide
supplies. In 1999, TSF established a large rural farming project
that provides food and income to thirty-four of the poorest families
of Thom village, including 107 children, and set up an English
teaching program for more than 300 children. In 2002, Hendrie
was recognized by the Middlesex Central District of the Massachusetts
Medical Society as a Community Clinician of the Year, an award
that recognizes practitioners who have made significant contributions
to patients and their communities.
James
A. Joseph |
James A. Joseph,
Doctor of Humane Letters
Ambassador James Joseph is professor of the practice of public
policy studies and executive director of the United States-Southern
Africa Center for Leadership and Public Values at Duke University.
Nominated by President Clinton and confirmed by the United States
Senate in December 1995, he was the first and only American ambassador
to present his credentials to President Nelson Mandela. In 1999,
President Thabo Mbeki awarded him the Order of Good Hope, the
highest honor the Republic of South Africa bestows on a citizen
of another country.
Joseph has had a distinguished career in government, business,
education, and philanthropy. He has served four United States
presidents. He was appointed to the number two position in the
Department of the Interior by President Carter and also served
as chairman of the Commission on the Northern Marianas. He was
a member of the Advisory Committee to the Agency for International
Development under President Reagan and was appointed an incorporating
director of the Points of Light Foundation and a member of the
Board of Advisers on Historically Black Colleges of President
George H. W. Bush. President Clinton appointed him the first chairman
of the Board of Directors of the Corporation for National Service.
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Amartya
Senh |
Amartya Sen,
Doctor of Laws
Amartya Sen is master of Trinity College, Cambridge, UK, and Lamont
University Professor Emeritus at Harvard University. He has served
as president of the Econometric Society, the Indian Econometric
Association, the American Economic Association, and the International
Economic Association. He is also honorary adviser of OXFAM. Before
joining Harvard in 1987, he was the Drummond Professor of Political
Economy at Oxford University and a fellow of All Souls College.
Before that, he was professor of economics at Delhi University
and at the London School of Economics. Sen has received honorary
doctorates from major universities in North America, Europe, and
Asia. Among the awards he has received are the Bharat Ratna (the
highest honor awarded by the president of India), the Presidency
of the Italian Republic Medal, the Eisenhower Medal, and the Nobel
Prize in Economics.
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5,130
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