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Colby to Hold 184th Commencement on May 22
On May 22 Colby College will celebrate its 184th commencement, graduating its most international class in history. The Class of 2005 -- 480 students strong with 10 percent hailing from other nations -- will be addressed by Dan Harris, a 1993 Colby graduate, now an ABC news correspondent who has reported from Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Israel for World News Tonight With Peter Jennings, Good Morning America, and Nightline.
Graduation ceremonies begin at 10 a.m. on the lawn of Miller Library. The public is invited to attend. In the event of bad weather the ceremony may be moved into the field house, in which case tickets are required.
The student-elected class speaker, Joshua Kahn, of St. Louis, Missouri, will share lessons he has learned in his college years. A philosophy major and musician, Kahn studied abroad in Santiago, Chile, and volunteered for Colby Cares About Kids while at Colby.
The valedictorian and class marshal, Mark Chapman, is a citizen of Zimbabwe. He spent his junior year studying in China and completed a Senior Scholars honors project on the integration of Chinese Muslims into the Islamic world.
Harris, who began his broadcasting career at two NBC stations in Maine, WLBZ and WCSH, before joining ABC news in 2000, will receive an honorary doctorate. For his journalistic achievements Harris has won an Associated Press Award for political coverage, a regional Emmy for feature stories, and an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award for in-depth coverage.
Honorary degrees will be awarded to David M. Childs, consulting design partner at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP/New York, one of the world's leading architecture, urban design, engineering, and interior architecture firms; Fred H. Gage, a professor in the Salk Institute's Laboratory of Genetics whose work may lead to methods of replacing brain tissue lost to stroke or Alzheimer's disease and to repairing spinal cords damaged by trauma; Rocco Landesman '69, president of the Jujamcyn Theaters in New York City, which has enjoyed remarkable success under his leadership with shows such as the critically acclaimed Angels in America, The Producers, and Caroline, or Change; and Dr. Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, the president and chief executive officer of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which works to improve the health and healthcare of Americans.
The graduation of Colby's most international class coincides with the College being recognized as one of America's most international campuses. Colby will receive the Senator Paul Simon Award for Campus Internationalization at the annual meeting of the Association of International Educators on June 1. The College also has been recognized for environmental leadership, with an award from the Environmental Protection Agency and two Maine Governor's Awards for Environmental Excellence. Founded in 1813, Colby enrolls 1,800 undergraduates.
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