Past Commencement Speakers
2012 - Fareed Zakaria, Journalist and Foreign Policy Author
2011 - John Chambers, Chairman and CEO of Cisco
2010 - Muhammad Yunus, Bangladeshi banker/economist
2009 - Oprah Winfrey, Philanthropist
2008 - Barbara Kingsolver, Writer
2007 - G. Richard Wagoner, Jr., Chair and CEO, General Motors
2006 - John Hope Franklin, J. B. Duke Professor Emeritus of History
2005 - Ricardo Lagos, President of Chile
2004 - Madeleine Albright, Sixty-fourth U.S. Secretary of State
2003 - Nannerl O. Keohane (excerpts from Kofi Annan’s speech & comments from Honorary degree recipients.)
2002 - Thomas K. Wolfe, Jr., Journalist
2001 - Charlayne Hunter-Gault, Broadcast Journalist
2000 - Elizabeth Hanford Dole, Public Servant
1999 - Corinne Boggs Roberts (Cokie), Broadcast Journalist
1998 - George H. W. Bush, 41st President of U.S.
1997 - James Earl Carter, Jr., 39th President of U.S.
1996 - Jane Alexander, Chairman, NEA
1995 - David Gergen, Former First aide, Prof. In Public Policy
1994 - Judy Woodruff, Broadcast Journalist
1993 - Bill Bradley, United States Senator, New Jersey
1992 - Marian Wright Edelman, lawyer, educator, crusader for children’s rights
1991 - George F. Will, syndicated columnist, educator, political commentator
1990 - Tom Brokaw, television journalist
1989 - Stephen Jay Gould, Historian of Science and Professor of Geology, Harvard University
1988 - Garry B. Trudeau, Nationally Syndicated Cartoonist
1987 - Edward (Ted) Koppel, Broadcast Journalist
