2004 Commencement Speakers
•Ashland University (Ohio)
Robert C. Springer
Colonel, United States Marine Corps, retired NASA astronaut director
•Bennett College (N.C.)
Gwendolyn E. Boyd
National President of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.
•Bucknell University (Pa.)
Ralph Nader
Consumer advocate, lawyer, author and presidential candidate
•California State University – Fullerton
Susan Elizabeth George
Educator, novelist and founder of the Elizabeth George Foundation
•Cameron University
(Okla.)
Linda Wertheimer
Senior National Public Radio correspondent and former host of “All Things Considered.”
•Case Western Reserve
University (Ohio)
Elie Wiesel
Holocaust survivor, author, teacher and storyteller; recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, Presidential Medal of Freedom and the United States Congressional Gold Medal
•Claremont Graduate
University (Calif.)
John Seely Brown
Vice president and chief scientist of Xerox Corporation, and director of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center
•Clark University (Mass.)
The Honorable Margaret Marshall
Chief Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts
•Colgate University (N.Y.)
Steve Burke
President of Comcast Cable and a Colgate University alumnus
•Duke University (N.C.)
Madeleine Albright
Former U.S. Secretary of State
•Emory University (Ga.)
Mary Robinson
Advocate of universal respect for fundamental rights and freedoms; Ireland’s first woman president; United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights; Harvard Law fellow; Winston Churchill Medalist
•Oxford College of
Emory University
Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum
President, Spelman College
•Grinnell College (Iowa)
Dr. William F. Schulz
Executive director of Amnesty
International USA
•Hampden-Sydney College (Va.)
Dr. J. Alfred Broaddus Jr.
President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond
•Harvard University (Mass.)
Kofi Annan
Secretary General of the United Nations and Nobel Peace Prize winner
•Ithaca College (N.Y.)
Scott Hamilton
Olympic figure skater and cancer survivor
•Lewis and Clark College (Ore.)
Dr. Anthony Fauci
Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), National Institutes of Health
•Liberty University (Va.)
Karl Rove
Senior adviser to the president of the United States
•Morehouse College (Ga.)
Dr. William (Bill) Cosby
Educator, entertainer and philanthropist
•New England College (N.H.)
Carol Moseley Braun
Former democratic presidential contender; first and only African American woman elected to the U.S. Senate; former legislator in the Illinois House of Representatives
•New York Law School
Alexis Herman
Chair and CEO of New Ventures, Inc. and former U.S. Secretary of Labor
•North Carolina A&T
State University
James Earl Jones
Award-winning actor
•Northwestern University (Ill.)
Tom Brokaw
Award-winning television news anchor and managing editor of
“NBC Nightly News”
•Ohio University
(graduate exercises)
Morgan L. Vis
Associate professor of environmental and plant biology
•Oregon State University
John H. Glenn
Former senator and astronaut
•Pennsylvania State University
(Great Valley)
Juan Johnson
Vice President, the Coca Cola Company
•Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute (N.Y.)
Dr. Robert Metcalfe
Internet pioneer, invented Ethernet networking
•Roanoke College (Va.)
Sean Burch
Extreme fitness instructor and mountaineer, conquered Mount Everest without using oxygen
•Rochester Institute of
Technology (N.Y.)
Anne M. Mulcahy
Chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Xerox Corporation
•Sarah Lawrence College (N.Y.) Grace Paley
Fiction writer
•Smith College (Mass.)
Judy Woodruff
CNN anchor and senior correspondent
•Southwestern University (Texas)
Ernesto Nieto
Founder of the National Hispanic Institute
•Spelman College (Ga.)
Dr. Benjamin Carson
Director, Pediatric Neurosurgery, Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions
•Stanford University (Calif.)
Sandra Day O’Connor
U.S. Supreme Court Justice
•Syracuse University and
SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (N.Y.)
(joint exercises)
Phylicia Rashad
Actress and philanthropist
•Tulane University (La.)
Senator John Breaux
Louisiana lawmaker
•University of California-Berkeley College of Natural Resources
Paul Hawken
Environmentalist, entrepreneur, journalist and best-selling author
•University of Denver (Colo.)
(Graduate Ceremony)
Njabulo S. Ndebele
Vice Chancellor of the University of Cape Town in South Africa
(Undergraduate Ceremony)
Richard C. Notebaert
Chairman and CEO for Qwest Communications International Inc.
•University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign
Lani Guinier
Civil rights attorney, author and
Harvard Law School professor
•University of
Maryland-Baltimore
(undergraduate)
Ursula M. Burns
Corporate senior vice president and president, Business Group Operations Xerox Corporation
(graduate)
Dr. William A. Haseltine
Chairman and chief executive officer Human Genome Sciences, Inc.
•University of Michigan,
Gerald R. Ford School of
Public Policy
Catherine Bertini
Undersecretary General for Management at the United Nations
•University of New Hampshire at Manchester
Bill Richardson
Governor of New Mexico, former ambassador to the United Nations and Secretary of Energy
•University of North Carolina –Chapel Hill
Julius Chambers
Pioneering civil rights attorney
•University of North Carolina – Greensboro
Gov. James B. Hunt Jr.
Former North Carolina governor
•University of Notre Dame (Ind.)
Justice Alan C. Page
Justice on the Minnesota Supreme Court
•University of Pennsylvania Bono
Activist and lead singer for the musical group U2
•University of Southern
California
Senator John McCain
Arizona senator and former presidential contender
•University of Southern
California Law School
Bruce Karatz
Chairman and chief executive officer of KB Home, one of the largest homebuilders in the United States and France
•Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Pierre Thomas
ABC News Justice Department correspondent and Virginia Tech alumnus
•Wake Forest University (N.C.)
Colin Powell
U.S. Secretary of State
•Washington university
in St. Louis
Thomas L. Friedman
Three-time individual Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the New York Times
•Wellesley College (Mass.)
Toni Morrison
Nobel Prize-winning author
•Wheaton College (Mass.)
Mary Robinson
Advocate of universal respect for fundamental rights and freedoms; Ireland’s first woman president; United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights; Harvard Law fellow; Winston Churchill Medalist
•Winston-Salem State
University (N.C.)
Dr. Mae Jemison
First African American female
astronaut
•Xavier University (La.)
Kathleen Babineaux Blanco
Louisiana governor
© Copyright 2005 by DiverseEducation.com
