Commencement

Susan Campanie, Events Administrator
315-859-4106

Honorary Degree Recipients

The following list includes recipients of honorary degrees since 2000.

2012

  • A.G. Lafley, former chairman and CEO of the Procter & Gamble Co., and chairman of Hamilton’s board of trustees (Commencement Speaker)
  • Peter Cameron '82, novelist
  • Geoffrey Canada, CEO of the Harlem Children’s Zone (Baccalaureate Speaker)
  • Letitia Chambers, president and CEO of the Heard Museum
  • Eugenie Havemeyer, a life trustee of Hamilton College and founding trustee of Kirkland College


2011

  • Patricia Pogue Couper W'44, lifelong friend of Hamilton College
  • Paul B. Lieberstein '89, screenwriter and television producer
  • The Honorable Al Gore (Commencement Speaker)
  • John E. Sexton, President of New York University (Baccalaureate Speaker)
     

2010

  • Peter Gelb, Metropolitan Opera General Manager
  • Dr. Martin S. Hirsch '60, AIDS/HIV and virology expert
  • Jeffrey Immelt P'10, chairman and CEO of General Electric (Commencement Speaker)
  • Christie Bell Vilsack K'72, executive director of The Iowa Initiative (Baccalaureate Speaker)
     

2009

  • John Adams, co-founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council
  • Cathie Black, president of Hearst Magazines (Commencement Speaker)
  • Rebecca Chopp, president of Colgate University (Baccalaureate Speaker)
  • Stuart Scott, '61 and former chairman of its Board of Trustees
     

2008

  • Taylor Branch, Author (Baccalaureate Speaker)
  • Henry M. Paulson, Jr., U.S. Treasury Secretary (Commencement Speaker)
  • Wendy Paulson, Environmentalist
  • Josiah "Josh" Simpson '72, Glass Artist
     

2007

  • Sherwood Boehlert, former Congressman
  • Johnnetta B. Cole, President of Bennett College for Women (Baccalaureate Speaker)
  • Richard Haass, President of the Council on Foreign Relations (Commencement Speaker)
  • F. Eugene Romano '49, local businessman
     

2006

  • Judith and Bill Moyers, Broadcast journalist (Baccalaureate Speaker)
  • Anna Quindlen, Author (Commencement speaker)
  • Joseph S. Nye, Jr. P'87, P'88, Government studies educator, administrator
     

2005

  • Mary L. Bonauto '83, attorney, GLAAD
  • Peter John Gomes, professor and minister, Harvard University (Baccalaureate Speaker)
  • Francis Haas Musselman '50, attorney, life trustee of Hamilton College, former chairman of the board of Kirkland College
  • Kurt L. Schmoke, former mayor of Baltimore (Commencement speaker)
  • Joseph Volpe, general manager, The Metropolitan Opera
     

2004

  • Kevin Kennedy '70, investment banker and former chairman of the Hamilton Board of Trustees
  • Margaret Miles, noted theological historian
  • Richard Nelson '72, playwright
  • Joseph Wilder, jazz trumpeter
  • Michael Castle '61, U.S. Representative and former Republican governor of Delaware (speaker only, HD was awarded earlier)
     

2003

  • Rt. Rev. G.P. Mellick Belshaw, retired bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of NJ
  • David Grubin '65, writer, director and producer of documentary films
  • Shirley Ann Jackson, president of Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute
  • Jim Lehrer, journalist (speaker)
  • Bucky Pizzarelli, jazz guitarist
  • Joan Hinde Stewart, president of Hamilton College
  • Roger W. Straus Jr. '39, publisher
     

2002

  • Stephen Carter, professor, author and moralist
  • Richard Hyman, jazz composer, arranger, conductor and organist
  • Paul Kellogg, artistic director of the Glimmerglass Opera and director of the NY City Opera
  • Thomas Meehan '51, Tony Award-winning Broadway writer
  • Christy Todd Whitman, EPA Administrator and former Republican governor of NJ (speaker)
     

2001

  • John M. Driscoll '58, chairman of pediatrics, Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center
  • Paul Greengard '48, 2000 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine
  • Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, author, Harvard professor and education scholar
  • Jeffrey P. Mass '62, professor of history, Stanford University (posthumous)
  • Ralph Sutton, jazz pianist
  • Tom Vilsack '72, Democratic governor of Iowa (speaker)
  • Melinda Wagner '79, 1999 Pulitzer Prize-winning composer
     

2000

  • Kenny Davern, jazz clarinetist
  • John D. Feerick, dean of the Fordham University Law School
  • Rev. D. Joan Martin, Assoc. Professor of Christian Ethics and Episcopal Divinity School
  • John Nichols '62, author
  • Sir Brian Urquhart, retired United Nations Undersecretary (speaker)

Cupola