Kalamazoo College will host Commencement for the Class of 2013 on Sunday, June 16, at 1:00 p.m., on the campus Quad. About 3,000 people are expected to attend the event, which is free and open to the public.
A total of 344 graduates from 27 states and eight foreign countries (China, Ecuador, Haiti, Hong Kong, Jamaica, South Korea, Thailand, Zambia) will receive Bachelor’s of Arts degrees in 30 majors; 65 graduates are double-majors. Approximately 55 percent of class members are female, 45 percent are male, and more than 19 percent self-report as students of color.
For the first time, the K Commencement will be live-streamed via the Internet. Visit the Kalamazoo College Commencement webpage (www.kzoo.edu/alumni/commencement) on Sunday, June 16, at 1:00 p.m. to watch the ceremony live.
On Saturday, K hosts a Senior Awards Program at 1:30 and a baccalaureate service at 8:00 p.m. for seniors and their families in Stetson Chapel.
Graduating senior Regina Pell was chosen by her K classmates to deliver Commencement remarks on their behalf. Pell is a history major from Grand Rapids who studied abroad at Goldsmiths University in London as a junior. She also completed one concentration in American Studies and a second in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.
Walter E. Massey, Ph.D., will deliver the commencement address and receive an honorary doctorate of science degree. Dr. Massey is president of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, a post he assumed in the fall of 2010. He is also the president emeritus of Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, having served as president there from 1995 to 2007. Immediately prior to that post, he was provost and senior vice president for academic affairs of the University of California system. A prominent physicist, Dr. Massey served as director of the Argonne National Laboratory from 1979 to 1984, and was professor of physics and vice president of research at the University of Chicago from 1979 to 1991. He also served as director of the National Science Foundation from 1991 to 1993, appointed by former President George H.W. Bush. Additionally, he served as professor of physics and dean of the college at Brown University.
Rachel Kushner, author of Telex from Cuba and the recently published The Flamethrowers, will also receive an honorary doctorate of humane letters degree and speak to K seniors. Kushner was the Class of 2013’s Summer Common Reading author and spoke to class members during their fall 2009 orientation at K. At the time, Ms. Kushner was a finalist for the National Book Award and for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and was a winner of the California Book Award. Kushner earned a B.A. degree from the University of California in Berkeley and a Masters in Fine Arts degree from Columbia University. Along with her novels she has written numerous features for ArtForum, edited the infamous literary magazines Grand Street and BOMB, and founded Soft Targets, a magazine devoted to art, literary theory, poetry, and fiction. She is a 2013 Guggenheim Fellow.
