CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather to deliver commencement address at Colgate University
Hamilton, NY--Dan Rather, anchor and managing editor of the CBS Evening News, anchor of the program, 48 Hours, and correspondent with 60 Minutes II, will deliver the commencement address at Colgate University. The May 20, 2001 event is the university's 180th commencement ceremony. More than 635 students will receive their baccalaureate degrees that day and Rather will be presented with an honorary degree from the university.
Colgate University will also award honorary degrees to Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Chu; Henry Louis Gates Jr., chair of Afro-American Studies, and director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for Afro-American Research at Harvard University; National Football League Commissioner Paul Tagliabue; and Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor, Harry R. Butman Chair in religion and philosophy at Piedmont College.
Selecting a commencement speaker is a process shared between the seniors and a university selection committee. Senior class co-presidents Ashley Pontius (Oneonta, New York) and Dana Snyde (Upper Saddle River, New Jersey) polled the student body and submitted a list of suggested speakers. University officials extend the official invitation. The Class of 2001 finds it fitting that someone dedicated to helping educate the public about the world will serve as commencement speaker.
Dan Rather has reported news into the lens of the CBS eye since the early 1960s. His nightly coverage of such major events -- Martin Luther King Jr.'s crusade, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the Vietnam War, the Nixon White House years, and Watergate -- earned him a national reputation as a doggedly determined reporter. His contributions, decades ago, to a fledgling Sunday evening news magazine helped establish 60 Minutes as the journalistic standard for investigative reporting.
According to CBS News, Rather "has interviewed every United States president from Dwight D. Eisenhower to Bill Clinton and virtually every major international leader of the past 30 years. In 1990, he was the first American journalist to interview Saddam Hussein after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait." Rather has served in many prestigious positions in his 35 years with the CBS News organization. Since March of 1981, Rather has served as anchor and managing editor of the CBS evening News.
For more information, contact Sarah Jarvis at [email protected] or 315.228.7452.
Founded in 1819, Colgate University is a nationally ranked, highly selective, residential, liberal arts college enrolling nearly 2,750 undergraduates. Situated on a rolling 515-acre campus in central New York State, Colgate University attracts students with diverse backgrounds, interests and talents.###
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