To Members of the Clark Community:

I am pleased to announce that Clark’s 118th Commencement exercises will take place Sunday, May 22, on the Campus Green. Commencement is among our most meaningful and celebratory occasions each year, and I am looking forward to sharing the day with our graduates and to welcoming families and friends to Clark.

In addition to recognizing the incredible accomplishments of graduating Clarkies, this year’s ceremony will recognize through the awarding of honorary degrees four extraordinarily accomplished individuals: a playwright who helps us interpret the world around us and our place in it, two groundbreaking historians who challenge us to learn from the past as we work to create a more just and inclusive world, and a leader who dedicated his entire career to Clark.

Renowned scholar and civil rights activist Dr. Mary Frances Berry will receive an honorary Doctor of Laws degree and will provide our Commencement address. For more than four decades, Dr. Mary Frances Berry has been one of the most visible and respected activists in the cause of civil rights, gender equality, and social justice. Serving as Chairperson of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, Dr. Berry led the charge for equal rights and liberties for all Americans over the course of four Presidential administrations. As Chancellor of the University of Colorado at Boulder, she was the first woman of any race to head a major research university. She made history as one of the founders of the monumental Free South Africa Movement (FSAM). She received the Nelson Mandela award from the South African Government for her role in organizing the FSAM, raising global awareness of South African injustice that helped to end over 40 years of apartheid. As Assistant Secretary for Education in the US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, she worked to make these historically inequitable systems achieve a new level of fairness. A prolific author, Dr. Berry’s books cover a wide range of subjects, from the history of constitutional racism in America to the history of progressive activism. She is the Geraldine R. Segal Professor Emerita of American Social Thought and Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania, where she teaches the history of American law and the history of law and social policy.

David Angel was Clark University’s ninth president, appointed in July 2010. He had previously served as provost and vice president of Academic Affairs at Clark University from 2003 to 2010 and first joined Clark as a professor of geography in 1987. Informed by his own scholarship on how cities and economies evolve, he was a champion of the ways Clark’s intimate size and diversity of thought offer ripe opportunities for collaboration across disciplines and with businesses and community partners. As provost, he worked to develop the Liberal Education and Effective Practice (LEEP) model, which stresses that knowledge gained in the classroom is amplified when it’s applied beyond campus. As president, he oversaw the construction of the Shaich Family Student and Alumni Engagement Center as well as the most ambitious and successful fundraising campaign in University history. We are delighted to welcome President Angel back to campus and to award him an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree.

Annette Gordon-Reed is the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard University and a leading voice on race and history in America. No historian has done more to recover the stories of enslaved blacks than Dr. Gordon-Reed, whose book The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize in History, the National Book Award for nonfiction, and fourteen other awards. Her other works include Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy; Vernon Can Read! A Memoir, a collaboration with Vernon Jordan; and Race on Trial: Law and Justice in American History. Her most recent book, On Juneteenth, was named one of the ten best books of 2021 by The New York Times. Her honors include the National Humanities Medal (awarded by President Barack Obama), a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a MacArthur Fellowship. She is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the American Philosophical Society. Professor Gordon-Reed will receive an honorary Doctor of Laws degree.

Doug Wright is an award-winning playwright, librettist, and screenwriter. His 2004 Tony Award-winning play I Am My Own Wife was the first one-person show ever to receive a Pulitzer Prize. He won an Obie for Outstanding Achievement in Playwriting and the Kesselring Award for Best American Play in 1996 for his play Quills. Other Broadway credits include War Paint, Hands on a Hardbody, The Little Mermaid, and Grey Gardens. Films include Quills and the upcoming The Burial starring Jamie Foxx and Tommy Lee Jones. His most recent play, Goodnight Oscar, which stars Sean Hayes, premieres this month at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago. His work is known for being inventive and boundary-breaking and has been seen in over 30 countries across the globe. Mr. Wright will receive an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree.

More information on each of the awardees and details on the ceremony are available on the Commencement website.

I look forward to celebrating our graduates with you on this special day.

Sincerely,

David B. Fithian ’87
President