Newswise — Historian, journalist, and author David Halberstam will be the principal speaker at Williams College's 215th Commencement exercises on Sunday, June 6. Peter Gomes, Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Pusey Minister, Harvard University, will be the Baccalaureate speaker on Saturday, June 5.
President of the College Morton Owen Schapiro will confer honorary degrees on both of them as well as to Nancy Hatch Dupree, expert on the history, art, and archaeology of Afghanistan; Shirin Ebadi, Iranian lawyer, human rights activist, and winner of the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize; Allan W. Fulkerson '54, president and CEO of Century Capital Management Inc. and Williams College trustee emeritus; Ellen V. Futter, president of the American Museum of Natural History; and Anthony W. Marx, president of Amherst College.
David HalberstamDoctor of Letters (Litt.D.)
Mr. Halberstam has chronicled the American scene and its changes in the second half of the 20th Century in books, newspapers, and magazines.
Educated at Harvard University (B.A., 1955), after college he took a reporting job in Mississippi with the West Point Daily Times Ledger (1955-56) and covered the early Civil Rights struggle for the Nashville Tennessean (1956-60). He was a New York Times staff writer (1960-67), reporting first from the Congo and then from Vietnam, where his articles often questioned the official version of the war. He shared the Pulitzer Prize and the George Polk Award for foreign reporting in 1964. In 1967, he left the Times to become contributing editor for Harper's.
His books range widely, from consideration of how and why we went to war in Vietnam in "The Best and the Brightest" (1972), to the rise of modern media in "The Powers That Be" (1979), the challenge of Japan to our economy in "The Reckoning" (1987), the nation's weakening educational standards and decline in economic productivity in "The Next Century" (1991), the young people who were part of the Civil Rights movement in "The Children" (1998), and consideration of how domestic politics came to dictate foreign policy in "War in the Time of Peace: Bush, Clinton, and the Generals" (2001).
The Wall Street Journal called "War in the Time of Peace," which was a runner-up for the Pulitzer, "riveting, merciless "¦ indispensable to anyone interested in that confused period between the Cold War and the Terrorist War about to begin." "War in the Time of Peace" was followed by "Firehouse" (2002), the epic story of the firefighters who sacrificed their lives on September 11, 200l. Many of Mr. Halberstam's books have been about sports; his newest "The Teammates," about the friendships of baseball players Williams, Doerr, Pesky, and DiMaggio, will be published later this year.
Peter John Gomes Doctor of Divinity (D.D.)
One of America's most distinguished preachers, Rev. Gomes was ordained in 1968 to the Christian ministry by the First Baptist Church of Plymouth, Mass. From 1968 to l970, he was instructor of history and director of the freshman experimental program at Tuskegee Institute. Since 1970, he has served in the Memorial Church, Harvard University. Rev. Gomes is former acting director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for Afro-American Research at Harvard and past president of The Signet Society, Harvard's oldest literary society.
He has published seven volumes of sermons as well as numerous articles and papers, and is the author of the best seller, "The Good Book: Reading the Bible with Mind and Heart" (1996), an attempt to demystify the Bible and to point the way to living "the good life." The book "is not a rant on the moral poverty of our times, but a reason for hope," he told Sarah Hollander of The Plain Dealer. "Today's young people are grappling with the definition of a good life and reconnecting education and ethics." In fact, he believes that many Americans are on "a pilgrimage for spirituality." He told David Gergen in a PBS Newshour interview, "Everywhere you go in every dimension, there is this hunger and thirsting after the things " the deep things " of life. "¦ the Bible is a gift from experienced pilgrims to inexperienced ones."
Mr. Gomes holds degrees from Bates College (B.A., 1965) and Harvard Divinity School (S.T.B., 1968) and honorary degrees from 13 American colleges and universities. He is an honorary fellow of Emmanuel College, the University of Cambridge, England.
Nancy Hatch DupreeDoctor of Humane Letters (L.H.D.)
An internationally recognized expert on the history, art, and archaeology of Afghanistan, Ms. Dupree has worked for more than 40 years to protect Afghanistan's cultural heritage.
Her interest in Afghanistan began with a trip in the late 1950s. In 1962, she married the renowned archaeologist Louis Dupree, and spent the next 15 years excavating historic sites across the country. After the Soviet invasion of 1978, Dupree and her husband were expelled from Afghanistan, and continued their humanitarian efforts in Peshawar, Pakistan, while pursuing academic careers in North Carolina.
In more than 250 works -- including tour guides, articles and book chapters -- she has written on such topics as Afghan history, archaeology, women, and libraries. Her 1965 book, "An Historical Guide to Kabul," became the inspiration for Tony Kushner's play "Homebody/Kabul."
Since her husband's death in 1989, Dupree has sustained her commitment to preserve the cultural heritage of the Afghan people, and has continued to generate humanitarian assistance for Afghanis from Peshawar. She is director of the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief's Resource and Information Center (ARIC), an organization that organizes humanitarian assistance efforts for Afghan residents and refugees.
One of her current projects has provided 300 self-contained libraries to Afghan villages and communities. "The more knowledge the people have, the easier it will be for them to rebuild," she said in a Barnard alumni publication. "We are convinced this project will aid in the reconstruction process " a process that is moving very slowly at the top, so we're beginning at the bottom, at the grassroots level."
Ms. Dupree majored in Chinese studies at Barnard College and completed a master's degree in Chinese at Columbia University. She is the recipient of the Outstanding Achievement Award by the Society of Women Geographers and a Bronze Medal for her work with Afghan refugees in Pakistan.
Shirin EbadiDoctor of Laws (LL.D.)
Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003, Shirin Ebadi has advanced the cause of human rights for over 20 years.
According to The New York Times, the Norwegian Nobel Committee, which picks the winners, made it clear that the "award was meant to send the message that Islam is not necessarily incompatible with democracy and human rights."
The Iranian lawyer and human rights activist was born in 1947. She received a law degree from the University of Tehran. From 1975 to 1979 she served as president of the city court of Tehran, the first female judge in Iran. Forced to resign in the wake of the 1979 revolution, she joined a male law firm in the early 1980s, and subsequently embarked on her human rights agenda. After the right to practice law independently was restored to Iranian women in the 1990s, Ebadi defended, often without fee, those whose rights had been compromised by the Ayatollah regime.
In addition to maintaining her practice, Ebadi began to use the press as a means to disseminate her humanitarian views, writing "The Rights of a Child: A Study of Legal Aspects of Children's Rights in Iran" (1994), and "History and Documentation of Human Rights in Iran" (2000).
She founded, despite government opposition, the Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child. Ms. Ebadi is also one of the founders of the Center for the Defense of Human Rights, which provides legal aid to families of imprisoned journalists and student activists. Giving advice to a young human rights activist, she once said: "Have confidence, have courage, and know that if we work hard, our struggle will be victorious."
Ms. Ebadi, who teaches at the University of Tehran, has also received the Rafto Prize from the Norwegian government in 2001 and the Human Rights Watch Award in 1996.
Allan W. FulkersonDoctor of Laws (LL.D.)
Mr. Fulkerson, a 1954 graduate of Williams, is President of Century Capital Management, which specializes in both private and public equity investing in the financial services and risk management industries.
Business Week, Forbes, Fortune, and The Wall Street Journal have written about him; he has appeared on Nightly Business Reports and been a featured speaker at a wide range of insurance industry and investment management programs. He has testified as an expert witness in cases, such as the United States Department of Labor and in California rate hearings.
A trustee of Williams College from 1986 until his appointment as trustee emeritus in 2001, he chaired the Board's Finance Committee at a time when the Williams endowment grew to historic highs, helping to enable the college to embark on its strategic plan.
He has served as president and vice president of the Society of Alumni, chaired his 25th Reunion Committee, and is a former class president. He also served as regional major gifts chair during the Third Century Campaign and headed the post- campaign planning committee. He is currently a co-chairman of 1954's 50th Reunion Committee.
Mr. Fulkerson is chairman of the Board of MASS MoCA and has served as a member of the Dean's council of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, director of the United States Squash Rackets Association, trustee of both Noble and Greenough School and The Fessenden School.
Ellen V. FutterDoctor of Humane Letters (L.H.D.)
Ms. Futter is president of the 135-year-old American Museum of Natural History. She was selected in 1993 at 43, the first woman to head the museum and the first woman named to the chief executive's job at a major New York City cultural institution.
Accepting the position, she declared "We have a national shortage of scientists. The museum"¦ can help by speaking out nationally about the importance of training more scientists and by offering internships for women and minorities."
Personally committed to the notion of women's education, she had previously served for 13 years as president of Barnard College, where, at the time of her inauguration, she was the youngest person ever to head an American college.
At Barnard's 100th Commencement in 1992, she said the nation was suffering a crisis of confidence and that "part of the solution was to encourage women to become leaders in politics, business, the professions, the arts, and in communities."
A former chair of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Futter is on the boards of The Legal Aid Society, the American Association of Higher Education, American International Group, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. In addition, she is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Advisory Board of the Yale School of Management, the National Institute of Social Sciences and the Academy of American Poets, as well as of the Association of the Bar in the City of New York State and American Bar Associations. She has received numerous honorary degrees and awards.
She attended the University of Wisconsin, graduating from Barnard College in 1971, and earned her J.D. degree from Columbia University Law School in 1974. She began her career as an associate at the Wall Street firm of Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy where she practiced corporate law.
Anthony W. MarxDoctor of Humane Letters (L.H.D.)
Professor Marx was named 18th president of Amherst College in 2003. When he assumed the presidency of Amherst, he told The New York Times that his priority would be "to make the college more active in seeking to improve American public education." He has been active in programs that strengthen public and private education in the U.S. and abroad.
Previously he was professor and director of undergraduate studies in political science at Columbia University. During his last year at Columbia, he served as director of the Gates Foundation-funded Early College/High School Initiative at the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowships Foundation, which establishes model public high schools as partnerships between school systems and universities.
Widely recognized as a scholar, he is the author of a dozen articles and three books: "Lessons of Struggle: South African Internal Opposition, 1960-1990," "Making Race and Nation: A Comparison of the United Sates, South Africa and Brazil" and "Faith in Nation: Bound by Hatred." "Making Race and Nation" received the American Political Science Association's 1999 Ralph J. Bunche Award for the best book on ethnic and cultural pluralism and the American Sociological Association's 2000 Barrington Moore Prize for the best book of the preceding three years in comparative-historical sociology.
He was founder of the Columbia Urban Education Program, a teacher recruitment and training partnership, and he is a founder of Khanya College, a South African secondary school.
Marx attended Wesleyan and Yale, where he received a B.A. in 1981. He received his M.P.A. degree from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton in 1986, and his Ph.D. from Princeton in 1990.
Williams College is consistently ranked one of the nation's top liberal arts colleges. The college's 2,000 students are taught by a faculty noted for the quality of their undergraduate teaching. The achievement of academic goals includes active participation of students with faculty in research. Admission decisions are made regardless of a student's financial ability, and the college provides grants and other assistance to meet the demonstrated needs of all who are admitted. Founded in 1793, it is the second oldest institution of higher learning in Massachusetts. The college is located in Williamstown, Mass. To visit the college on the Internet: www.williams.edu
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