Image courtesy of Connecticut College.
Connecticut College has announced its chosen keynote speaker for the 104th Commencement. In an email sent out by President Katherine Bergeron on Feb. 9, 2022, she informed the student body that the founder and president of The Posse Foundation, Deborah Bial will speak at this year’s Commencement on May 22, 2022.
Bial, a graduate of Brandeis University and Harvard University, is best known for her work as the founder of “Posse.” Posse is a national nonprofit organization that began in 1989, providing scholarships for students to attend partnered colleges and universities in the United States. Bial received a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship in 2007 for the organization.
Connecticut College has been a partnered institution with Posse since 2008 with coalitions in Chicago and New York. 161 students at Conn have been enrolled as Posse scholars and roughly twenty are expected to matriculate each year. 95 Posse scholars will have graduated from Conn by May 2022. Notable Connecticut College Posse alumni include Maurice Tiner, Director of Race and Ethnicity Programs at Connecticut College, and Chakena Sims Perry ’16, Chair of Cook County Young Democrats.
“As part of the Commencement ceremony, the College will award Bial a doctor of humane letters honoris causa, a degree that reflects her lifelong commitment to fostering campus environments where students thrive, reach their potential, and contribute to others’ flourishing—what we like to call full participation,” wrote Bergeron.
The Commencement Speaker is chosen by the graduating class in their junior year The decision is made by the Commencement Speaker Committee, the Board of Trustees, and the President. Their efforts began back in the fall of 2020. 2022’s committee was made up of co-chairs Lauren Middleton, the Secretary of the College, and Ava Ernst ’22; Piper Burke ’22, Elizabeth Lopez ’22, Long Ta ’22; as well as faculty and staff members Anne Bernhard, Luci Chaplin, Marc Forster, Ayako Takamori, and Tiffany Thiele.
The student handbook notes that the steps in this process are thus: “(1) a Commencement Speaker Committee is established, (2) the Junior Class submits nominations to the Commencement Speaker Committee, (3) the Commencement Speaker Committee develops a list of candidates to be presented to the President, (4) and the President selects a candidate to be invited and is responsible for securing the final candidate to speak.”
The Committee hopes to have roughly 10-12 names to choose from each year. It is common for names in politics, journalism, and entertainment to be on the list. “We go through and see what’s feasible for the College, sometimes we look at the previous year’s list too,” said Middleton. Bial has previously been on the list for commencement speaker as well as for this year.
The list is then vetted through the campus Honorary Degree Committee and the Board of Trustees Committee on Academic Affairs. “We want to make sure that the speaker is someone we feel comfortable giving an honorary degree to,” Middleton elaborated.
When the 2022 committee first began their search, Ernst informed the class that “the College will not pay speaker fees but will cover the cost of travel and lodging, and therefore having a connection to the candidates is going to be very important in order to guarantee their participation.” The College does present the speaker with an honorary degree.
Often the process is finished by the fall of the senior year, when President Bergeron offers the formal invitation to the selected speaker. Being chosen as Commencement Speaker is a huge honor at Connecticut College, and The College Voice formally extends its congratulations to Deborah Bial.
