Secretary of State Madeleine Albright will be the commencement speaker at MHC's graduation ceremonies on May 25. She and six other distinguished people will receive honorary degrees from the College that day.
Albright, who has a long and distinguished career as a diplomat, policy analyst, and scholar, was the first woman to be named secretary of state. Before her promotion, she was the U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations and a member of President Clinton's cabinet and the National Security Council. She has also served as president of the Center for National Policy and as Donner Professor of International Affairs and director of the Women in Foreign Service Program at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service.
"Mount Holyoke is honored that Secretary Albright has agreed to speak at the College," said President Creighton. "Not only is Albright a superbly capable public servant, she is also a woman who will use her substantial influence to continue this country's international advocacy for rights and opportunities for women and girls throughout the world."
Linda Chavez-Thompson, first executive vice president of the AFL-CIO, has more than a quarter century's experience as a feisty and effective labor leader. She began working at age ten, spending summers working with her parents in the cotton fields of west Texas. She successfully organized workers for the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) in the union-hostile Southwest, and rose to be its international vice president before joining the AFL-CIO's executive council. As a Hispanic woman (the first on the executive council), she represents the fastest growing segments of organized workers in the country and personifies the changing face of labor.
Aminata Sow Fall has been described as the most important Senegalese writer of her generation. Her novel Le revenant (The Ghost) was the first ever published by a French-speaking African woman. In four subsequent novels, her work has increased international understanding of postcolonial West African culture and the place of women within that culture.
Ellen Robinson Grass has contributed to the education and scientific development of hundreds of young scientists as--until her recent retirement--president of the Grass Foundation. Funded by profits from the Grass Instrument Company she founded with her late husband, the Grass Foundation has since 1955 granted fellowships to graduate and postdoctoral students, especially in the field of neurophysiology.
Gloria Johnson Powell '58 is a professor of child psychiatry at Harvard University Medical School and director of the Camille Cosby Ambulatory Care Center at the Judge Baker Children's Center in Boston. In addition to her many contributions as a physician, Powell was active in the civil rights movement of the 1960s, and worked with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. She served as an MHC alumna trustee from 1976 to 1980.
Anneli Cahn Lax is professor emeritus of mathematics at New York University, and one of her generation's best researchers in applied mathematics. While raising her family, Lax balanced work and home life and became known for her sensitivity to young women entering professional mathematics. She worked hard to improve mathematics teaching, and won the Mathematical Association of America's highest honor for editing its New Mathematical Library series.
Arturo Madrid is Murchison Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Trinity University in Texas. He has made outstanding contributions to developing the intellectual resources of the Latino community, and produced pioneering scholarship on Chicano literary and cultural expression. Madrid's career as an educator, scholar, and activist has had a major influence on the national articulation, critical examination, support, and defense of Latino concerns in the United States.
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