Commencement Addresses by Oldest Graduating Senior and South African Activist

Commencement Addresses by Oldest Graduating Senior and South African Activist

BRUNSWICK, Maine - Bowdoin College will award 432 bachelor of arts degrees when Maine's oldest college holds its 196th commencement exercises at 10 a.m., Saturday, May 26. President Robert H. Edwards will preside over his last commencement ceremony as Bowdoin president; he retires June 30.

Since 1806, Bowdoin has given the honor of speaking at commencement to graduating seniors, rather then celebrities. Students compete to determine who will speak. This year, Bowdoin's oldest graduating senior, Christine DeTroy, of Brunswick, Maine, will give a speech titled "My Bowdoin Education Began in September of 1947." Christine is 72 and first became familiar with the college when her husband was a student at Bowdoin on the GI Bill after World War II. She graduates from Bowdoin 51 years after he did (and 31 years after her son). She is a native of Germany and met her husband when he was a soldier. She has been an activist for various causes throughout her life and was recently featured in an article in the Portland Press Herald, http://www.portland.com/news/nemitz/010520nemitz.shtml. Also speaking at commencement is Nathaniel Chase Vinton, of Salt Lake City, Utah. His speech is titled "Maine's Absent Presence."

Bowdoin will award honorary degrees to Mamphela Ramphele, South African national now in Washington D.C., doctor, activist, former vice-chancellor of the University of Cape Town and managing director of the World Bank; Maxine Kumin of Warner, New Hampshire, Pulitzer prize-winning poet and former poet laureate of New Hampshire; Paul Simon, of Carbondale, Ill., politician and former United States Senator; Theodore Stebbins of Brookline, Mass., authority on American art and well-known curator; and Robert H. Edwards of Brunswick, Maine, retiring president of Bowdoin College, lawyer, administrator, and zealous supporter of liberal arts education. Each of the honorands will briefly address the audience.

On Friday, May 25, Bowdoin will host its traditional baccalaureate service at 3 p.m. at First Parish Church. Honorand Mamphela Ramphele will present the baccalaureate address. The student speaker will be Michael Micciche III of Reading, Mass., who will deliver a speech titled, "Delivering the Goods or So What's a Bowdoin English Major Really Good for Anyway?" Transcripts of selected speeches will be available after commencement.

After the baccalaureate service, the day ends with Bowdoin's traditional lobster bake for students and their families, faculty and staff.

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