MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, Mass. – Anne-Marie Slaughter, an advocate for innovation in public policy and national affairs, will deliver Tufts University's commencement address on Sunday, May 18, 2014, and receive an honorary doctorate of laws.
Slaughter is the president and CEO of the New America Foundation, a public policy institute and idea incubator. From 2009–2011 she served as director of policy planning for the United States Department of State, the first woman to hold that position. Prior to her government service, Slaughter was the dean of Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and the J. Sinclair Armstrong Professor of International, Foreign, and Comparative Law at Harvard Law School.
In 2012 Slaughter published "Why Women Still Can’t Have It All," in The Atlantic; it quickly became the most-read article in the history of the magazine and helped spawn a renewed national debate on the continued obstacles to genuine full male-female equality.
WHEN: 9:00 a.m., Sunday, May 18, 2014 (Media should arrive no later than 8:45 a.m.)
WHERE: The Green (academic quad) on Tufts' Medford/Somerville campus
WHO: Faculty in full academic regalia; some 3,000 graduates from Tufts' undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools; parents, family and friends. In addition to Slaughter, honorary degree recipients include:
o James Lawson, social activist, architect of the non-violence movement in pursuit of Civil Rights, educator and religious leader. Described by Martin Luther King Jr. as one of the "noble men" who had deeply influenced the struggle for equal rights, the Reverend Lawson has showed over five decades how the power of non-violence can effect profound social change. Lawson will receive an honorary doctorate of public service.
o Jill Lepore, historian, writer and Tufts alumna. Lepore is the David Woods Kemper ’41 Professor of American History, Harvard College Professor, chair of Harvard's History and Literature Program, a staff writer at The New Yorker and an award-winning author. Her books and essays focus on the histories of war and violence and of language and literacy. Lepore will receive an honorary doctorate of humane letters.
o Haruki Murakami, novelist. Acclaimed not only in his native Japan but also internationally for fiction that is humorous and surreal, Murakami has earned numerous literary prizes and been praised as being "among the world's greatest living novelists" by The Guardian. Murakami will receive an honorary doctorate of letters.
o James Stern, financier, philanthropist, Tufts alumnus and chairman emeritus of the Tufts board of trustees. Chair of the Cypress Group LLC, Stern is the youngest person ever elected to the Tufts board of trustees, at age 32. He served 31 years on the board, including a decade as chairman, endowing multiple professorships and student scholarships and spearheading two successful capital fundraising campaigns. Stern will receive an honorary doctorate of business administration.
In addition, on Saturday, May 17, Dr. Rajiv Shah, administrator of USAID, will address Fletcher graduates during their Class Day ceremonies.
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