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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 27, 1994

CONTACT:

Mary Ann Hill
(781) 283-2373
mhill@wellesley.edu

WELLESLEY COLLEGE COMMENCEMENT, 1994

Wellesley, MA- Presiding over Wellesley College's 116th Commencement Exercises, President Diana Chapman Walsh today presented Bachelor of Arts degrees to 587 women including 36 Davis Scholars. Walsh was inaugurated 12th President of Wellesley on May 29, the fourth alumna to lead the New England liberal arts college for women.

Broadcast journalist Cokie Roberts returned to her alma mater to deliver the Commencement address. As ABC News Special Correspondent for politics, Congress and public policy, Roberts appears weekly on the roundtable discussion, "This Week With David Brinkley," and frequently serves as anchor on "Nightline." In addition, she is a senior news analyst for National Public Radio heard regularly on NPR's newsmagazine, "Morning Edition."

Surrounded by a display of international flags signifying the countries represented by members of the graduating class, Roberts addressed a crowd of nearly 5,000 including seniors, their guests, faculty and staff in the College's Academic Quadrangle.

Cokie Roberts joined National Public Radio in 1978 and was congressional correspondent for 13 years. In her distinguished career at NPR, she won numerous awards, including the highest recognition in public radio, the Edward R. Murrow Award. She was also the first broadcast journalist to win the prestigious Everett McKinley Dirksen Award for coverage of Congress. She has been co-host of the PBS weekly program, 'The Lawmakers," and as congressional correspondent for "MacNeil /Lehrer Newshour," she won the Weintal Award in 1987 for her work on the Iran/Contra affair.

Roberts, a 1964 graduate of Wellesley College where she majored in political science, received the College's Alumnae Achievement Award in 1985, "in recognition of excellence and distinction in professional pursuits." She was named one of Glamour magazine's "Ten Outstanding Women of 1991," and she has been named "Outstanding Mother of the Year" by the National Mother's Day Committee. A frequent contributor to The New York Times and The Washington Post, she has also written for The Atlantic and The New York Times Magazine.

Jennifer L. Vanasco, a philosophy major, delivered the student commencement speech on behalf of the graduating class, a tradition begun at Wellesley in 1969 by another graduating senior, Hillary Rodham Clinton. Vanasco is a resident of Garden City, New York.

President Walsh announced the three winners of the Pinanski Prize for Excellence in Teaching: Charles B. Fisk, Phyllis Henderson Carey Associate Professor of Music; Sally Engle Merry, Professor of Anthropology and Patrick Morton, Associate Professor of Mathematics. She also announced the retirements of three distinguished faculty members: Robert E. Garis, Katharine Lee Bates Professor of English; Paul R. Barstow, Professor of Theatre Studies; and Jeanne A. Darlington, Laboratory Instructor in Chemistry. Three professorships were announced: Sally Engle Merry, Professor of Anthropology, will hold the Class of 1949 Chair in Ethics; Kenneth P. Winkler, Professor of Philosophy, has been named Class of 1919 50th Reunion Professor; and William E. Cain, Professor of English, will be the Mary Jewett Gaiser Professor of English. President Walsh also announced the establishment of a new professorship at Wellesley, the Norma Wilentz Hess Professor of Political Science. The first holder of that chair will be Joel Krieger, Professor of Political Science.

On Thursday, May 27, Eve Waterfall, Wellesley College Class of 1989, delivered the Baccalaureate address, elected by the senior class council. She is a second year law student at Northeastern University.

 

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