Give yourself a peek of the Commencement/Reunion Weekend on our Flickr, Facebook, and Tumblr.
Commencement Webcast
The Commencement ceremony will be broadcast live at 9:30 a.m. EST on Mon., May 28, 2012.
Commencement/Reunion Weekend 2012 will held Friday, May 25, through Monday, May 28. Commencement exercises will be held Monday morning on Tappan Square, at which more than 715 students are expected to receive degrees, and hundreds of alumni will return to campus over the weekend to take part in reunion gatherings and to attend special events including panel discussions, historical tours, concerts and plays.
This year’s Commencement/Reunion Weekend includes such long-standing traditions as the Baccalaureate Celebration and Illumination, and more recent traditions such as the Oberlin Steel band concert, OCircus, and some quirky Oberlin-style outfitting for the academic procession. Oberlin is in the final year of its five-year plan for a climate-neutral commencement. Among the innovations is the option to make donations to a carbon-offset fund to offset greenhouse gas emissions while traveling to Oberlin.
Thanks to all alumni, parents, and students who are coming out to join us during this festive weekend.
- Commencement/Reunion Blog
- Speakers and Award Recipients
- For Graduating Students
- For Parents and Family
- Reunion Information for Alumni
- Archived Speeches
Commencement Speaker
Thomas Frieden ’82, Doctor of Science
Director, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Administrator, Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry
A physician with training in internal medicine, infectious diseases, public health, and epidemiology, Dr. Thomas Frieden is especially known for his expertise in tuberculosis control. Dr. Frieden became director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and administrator of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry in June 2009. He has worked to control both communicable and non-communicable diseases in the United States and around the world.
Baccalaureate Speaker
Daisy Khan
Executive Director of the American Society for Muslim Advancement
Daisy Khan is executive director of the American Society for Muslim Advancement (ASMA), a New York-based nonprofit dedicated to strengthening an expression of Islam based on cultural and religious harmony and to building bridges between Muslims and the general public.
Honorary Degree Recipients
Ntozake Shange, Doctor of Fine Arts
Groundbreaking writer and performance artist
Ntozake Shange is a renowned poet, performance artist, playwright, novelist, children’s book author, and educator. Her works have had a major influence in the worlds of literature, theater, women’s studies and African American culture. Her ground breaking 1970s choreopoem, for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf, ran on Broadway, toured internationally, won the Off-Broadway Theatre OBIE award, and was nominated for a Tony Award. This spring, Shange collaborated with longtime creative partner Dianne McIntyre and the Oberlin Theater and Dance Program to produce her latest choreopoem, why i had to dance.
James Burrows ’62, Doctor of Fine Arts
Award-winning television director, producer, and creator
James Burrows is one of television’s most respected and honored creative talents. He may be est known as cocreator, executive producer, and director of the critically acclaimed series Cheers. Over his distinguished career, Burrows has received 10 Emmys, four Directors Guild of America Awards, and the 1996 American Comedy Awards’ Creative Achievement Award. Burrows’ success as the director of television pilots is legendary. He is currently at the helm of the second season of the CBS hit comedy Mike and Molly. The current primetime television schedule features three shows—Big Bang Theory, Mike and Molly, and Two and a Half Men—whose pilot episodes Burrows directed.
Margaret Cheney ’76, Doctor of Science
Professor of mathematics, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Margaret Cheney ’76 is a professor of mathematics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, a position she has held since 1993. Her work deals primarily with inverse problems in acoustics and electromagnetic theory, as well as low-frequency electromagnetic imaging and remote sensing problems. Throughout her academic career, Cheney has received a number of honors and awards including a National Science Foundation Faculty Award for Women in Science and Engineering in 1991 and the Lise Meitner Visiting Professorship at the Lund Institute of Technology in Sweden in 2000. Cheney has four patents under her name, and her research has appeared in approximately 90 publications.
Martha Bergmark ’70, Doctor of Humanities
Founding president of the Mississippi Center for Justice
Martha Bergmark ’70 is the founding president of the Mississippi Center for Justice, a nonprofit public interest law firm based in Jackson, Mississippi. Since its founding in 2003, the center has worked toward the advancement of low-income families and individuals in the Deep South, launching advocacy campaigns to promote educational opportunities, financial security and foreclosure prevention, access to health and childcare, affordable housing and disaster recovery, and community economic development. Under Bergmark’s leadership, the center’s budget has increased twelvefold, allowing the organization to open additional offices in Biloxi and Indianola.
Stanley Cowell ’62, Doctor of Music
Award-winning jazz pianist and composer and chair of the Jazz Studies Program at Rutgers
University
Classically trained jazz pianist and composer Stanley Cowell ’62 is chair of the Jazz Studies Program at Rutgers University, Mason Gross School of the Arts. He currently performs and lectures as a solo pianist and in ensemble formations in jazz clubs and concert clubs across the country. Over the course of his decades-long career, Cowell has worked with such renowned jazz artists as Max Roach, Abbey Lincoln, the Heath Brothers, Sonny Rollins, Clifford Jordan, Miles Davis, Stan Getz, Bobby Hutcherson, and Harold Land. In 1990, Cowell received a Meet the Composer/Rockefeller Foundation/AT&T Jazz Program grant for the creation of Piano Concerto No. 1 in honor of jazz pianist Art Tatum.
Award for Distinguished Service to the Community
Richard J. Dunn
Active leader in Oberlin community development
For more than five decades, Richard J. Dunn has played a prominent role in the Oberlin community. As an active civic leader, Dunn has held positions in the city, the college, the business communities, and the greater Lorain County area, while serving on the boards of several organizations.
Alumni Medal
Daniel Gardner '89
Civic leader, educational and environmental advocate
Daniel Gardner’s passionate interest in civic engagement has led to leadership in community, economic, and environmental issues at the local, state, and national levels. As former mayor and president of Oberlin City Council from 2004 to 2008, Gardner engineered a landmark tax sharing agreement with a neighboring township, and developed several policies to make Oberlin a carbon-neutral community. Currently, Gardner is training to be a certified financial planner with the intent of serving social entrepreneurs, enabling “people who do good to do well.”
