Corey Booker Booked for Commencement Address
By J.p. Lawrence
Bard College will hold its 152nd commencement on Saturday, May 26, 2012.
The commencement address will be given by Cory A. Booker, mayor of Newark, New Jersey, who will receive an Honorary Doctorate of Law.
Booker is presently serving his second term and has attracted national attention for his education reform efforts.
One of those educational efforts has been the Bard High School Early College (BHSEC) Newark, one of four new high schools opened in the city thanks, in part, to start up funding from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
Booker also made headlines in April for heroically saving a Newark woman from a burning building.
President of Bard College Leon Botstein explained that Bard does not go out of its way to nab celebrities, many of whom charge large fees, to give the college’s commencement address.
“Some institutions pay a lot of fees,” Botstein said. “We don’t do that; we never have. All our commencement speakers come out of the honorary degree group.”
“I don't think we necessarily need famous people,” junior Otto Berkes said, in agreement with the college’s policy. “I'd rather have someone who has something interesting to say.”
Sophomore Shahrod Khalkhali agreed, “I would want someone with something useful to say; honest, applicable, some sort of advice. As long as it was relevant, slightly edifying, I wouldn’t care. I care more about their intellectual worth than their prestige.”
Other students, however, would like to see the kind of celebrity speakers that many other colleges hire.
“They need to pay money and get some good fucking speakers,” Camille Meshorer, a sophomore, said. “Seniors should feel amazing when graduating, on the other hand...its all about what the speaker says after all, right?
Honorary degrees will also be awarded to poet and author Hans Magnus Enzensberger, human rights activist Aryeh Neier, entrepreneur and philanthropist Lynda Resnick, playwright Lynn Nottage, and molecular biologist Jens Reich.
The Bard Medal will be presented to John and Wendy Neu; the John and Samuel Bard Award in Medicine and Science to Fred Maxik ’86; the Charles Flint Kellogg Award in Arts and Letters to Carolee Schneeman ’59; the John Dewey Award for Distinguished Public Service to Stephen Saland; the Mary McCarthy Award to Deborah Eisenberg, and the Bardian Award to JoAnne Akalaitis, Burton Brody, and Frederick Hammond.