Commencement Speakers

Over the past years, Trinity College’s commencement ceremonies have been highlighted by powerful speeches from a diverse array of speakers, each bringing unique perspectives and life experiences to the podium. Whether alumni, renowned educators, or distinguished figures from Connecticut’s public and civic life and beyond, these speakers have imparted words of resilience, leadership, and social responsibility, acting as shining examples for the graduating classes.

Since 1918, the tradition of a single commencement speaker has been a hallmark of the ceremony, with the designated speaker receiving an honorary degree from the College. Prior to this change, there was not a singular speaker; instead, multiple addresses were delivered by members of the graduating class. While the single-speaker format has remained largely consistent, there have been a few exceptions. For example, the 1923 ceremony featured four speakers in celebration of the College's centennial, and in 1921, two speakers addressed the audience due to the honored visit of the Italian ambassador to the United States. Additionally, there was a brief hiatus from 1971 to 1976, during which no speakers were featured, presumably in an effort to shorten the ceremony. The following list details all commencement speakers from 1918 to the present:

{Degree abbreviations: DD – Doctor of Divinity; LHD – Doctor of Humane Letters; DHum – Doctor of Humanities; LittD – Doctor of Letters; LLD – Doctor of Laws; ScD – Doctor of Science; DFA – Doctor of Fine Arts; DM – Doctor of Music; DST – Doctor of Sacred Theology; DPH – Doctor of Public Health; JCD – Doctor of Canon Law; MA – Master of Arts; MFA – Master of Fine Arts; MLitt – Master of Letters; MM – Master of Music; MS - Master of Science; BA – Bachelor of Arts; BM – Bachelor of Music; BS – Bachelor of Science}

2024 - Danny Meyer, '80, LHD, Leader, author, humanitarian, founder of Union Square Hospitality Group
2023 - Nicole Hockley ‘92, co-founder and CEO of Sandy Hook Promise
2022 - Raja Changez Sultan ‘72, DFA, painter, poet, journalist
2021 - Jeffrey A. Flaks, LHD, Hartford HealthCare President & CEO
2020 - Will McCormack ‘96, executive producer, director, screenwriter, and actor (The delayed commencement ceremony was held in June 2022.)
2019 - Samuel H. Kennedy ‘95, LHD, executive, President & CEO of Boston Red Sox
2018 - Johnnetta Betsch Cole, president of Spelman College
2017 - Daniel C. Dennett, LHD, philosopher, writer, and cognitive scientist
2016 - William K. Marimow ‘69, investigative journalist and educator
2015 - James M. Lawson, Jr., Civil Rights activist and professor
2014 - Katherine A. Couric, journalist, author, cancer research and awareness advocate
2013 - Bridget Mary McCormack ‘88, lawyer, professor, and founder of Michigan Innocence Clinic
2012 - Anne Fadiman, Author, educator and journalist
2011 - Patrick Joseph Wilson, actor and artist
2010 - John Clifton Bogle, writer, investor, and business mogul
2009 - Joanna Jeanne Scott ‘82, writer and educator
2008 - James F. Jones, Trinity College president (2004-2014) and educator
2007 - Tom Wolfe P'07, author and journalist
2006 - John Herron Biggs, educator and business executive
2005 - Henry Kaufman, economist and philanthropist
2004 - Ruth K. Westheimer, social scientific expert on human sexuality, lecturer, and author
2003 - Garry B. Trudeau, Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist and political commentator
2002 - John G. Rowland, Connecticut State Governor and statesman
2001 - Joseph I. Lieberman, legislator and US Senator
2000 - Richard C. Holbrooke, US Ambassador to the United Nations and diplomat
1999 - Lorraine Monroe, founding principal of the Frederick Douglass Academy for College and Professional Careers in Harlem, and author
1998 - Jimmy Carter, 39th US President, co-founder of the Carter Center, and educator
1997 - Myrlie Evers-Williams, Civil Rights activist, founder of Medgar and Myrlie Evers Institute, and journalist
1996 - Strobe Talbott, US Deputy Secretary of State, scholar, and author
1995 - Barbara B. Kennelly ‘58, member of the US House of Representatives and politician
1994 - Madeleine May Kunin, US Deputy Secretary of Education, diplomat, and author
1993 - Mary D. Fisher, founder of the Mary Fisher Clinical AIDS Research and Education (CARE) Fund, AIDS activist, artist, and author
1992 - Brendan Kennelly, poet, dramatist, and educator
1991 - Charles Osgood, journalist and columnist
1990 - Gwendolyn Brooks, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, author, and educator
1989 - James Fairfield English Jr., JD, Trinity College president (1981-1989) and former Connecticut Bank and Trust Company executive
1988 - Andrew Aitken Rooney, writer-producer and news correspondent
1987 - Ellen Ash Peters, Chief Justice of Connecticut State Supreme Court and educator
1986 - Christopher John Dodd, US Senator, lobbyist, and lawyer
1985 - Ellen Goodman, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and columnist
1984 - Brendan Gill, critic/contributing writer for The New Yorker and author
1983 - Robert Breckenridge Ware MacNeil, co-creater of the Robert MacNeil Report television news program and broadcast journalist
1982 - Gerald Holton, PhD, physicist, historian, and educator
1981 - Juanita Morris Kreps, PhD, former US Secretary of Commerce, economist, and educator
1980 - Lewis Thomas, MD, president of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, poet, educator, and policy advisor
1979 - George Frederick Will ‘62, syndicated columnist and television commentator
1978 - Hanna Holborn Gray, president of University of Chicago, historian, and educator [First female commencement speaker]
1977 - Harry Reasoner, ABC news correspondent and journalist
1976 - NO COMMENCEMENT SPEAKER
1975 - NO COMMENCEMENT SPEAKER
1974 - NO COMMENCEMENT SPEAKER
1973 - NO COMMENCEMENT SPEAKER
1972 - NO COMMENCEMENT SPEAKER
1971 - NO COMMENCEMENT SPEAKER
1970 - John Morton Blum, PhD, historian, author, and educator
1969 - William Bertalan Walsh, MD, founder of Project HOPE and physician
1968 - Albert Charles Jacobs, Trinity College president (1953-1968) and educator
1967 - Charles Harting Percy, US Senator, politician, and businessman
1966 - Cyrus Roberts Vance, US Deputy Secretary of Defense and lawyer
1965 - Igor Ivanovich Sikorsky, aviation pioneer, inventor, and helicopter designer
1964 - Whitney North Seymour, New York State Senator, politician, and attorney
1963 - Glenn Theodore Seaborg, Co-recipient of Nobel Prize in Chemistry and chemist
1962 - George Keith Funston ‘32, former Trinity College president (1945-1951), New York Stock Exchange president, and businessman
1961 - Howard Archibald Rusk, founder of Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine and physician
1960 - Leonard Carmichael, secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, psychologist, and educator
1959 - John McKenney Mitchell ‘18, MD, University of Pennsylvania Dean of the School of Medicine, physician, and educator
1958 - John Ray Dunning, contributor of Manhattan Project, physicist, and educator
1957 - Albert Charles Jacobs, Trinity College president (1953-1968) and educator
1956 - Maxwell Davenport Taylor, Chief of Staff of the US Army, army officer, and diplomat
1955 - Frank Diehl Fackenthal, president of Columbia University Press and academic administrator
1954 - Albert Charles Jacobs, Trinity College president (1953-1968) and educator
1953 - Irving Sands Olds, former Chairman and CEO of US Steel, lawyer, and philanthropist
1952 - Lucius Dubignon Clay, former military governor of US zone in Germany, army officer, and war veteran
1951 - John Davis Lodge, Governor of Connecticut, actor, lawyer, diplomat, and politician
1950 - Harold Edward Stassen, University of Pennsylvania president, attorney, and former Governor of Minnesota
1949 - John McKenney Mitchell ‘18, MD, University of Pennsylvania Dean of the School of Medicine, physician, and educator
1948 - Allan Nevins, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, journalist, and educator
1947 - Everette Lee De Golyer, petroleum geologist and geophysicist
1946 - Vannevar Bush, director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, former president of the Carnegie Institution for Science of Washington, engineer, and inventor
1945 - Stanley Hart Osborn, MD, State of Connecticut Health Commissioner
1944 - James Fairfield English ’16, Trinity College trustee, Hartford Seminary Foundation, superintendent of the Connecticut Conference of Congregational Christian Churches
1943 - Robert Cutler, head occupational analyst of the Army Specialist Corps and lawyer
1942 - Michael Edward Coleman, Anglican bishop
1941 - Bernard Rosecrans Hubbard, SJ, Jesuit priest, educator, geologist, and explorer
1940 - Remsen Brinckerhoff Ogilby, Trinity College president (1920-1943), Episcopal priest, and educator
1939 - Willard Cole Rappleye, MD, Dean of Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, physician, and educator
1938 - Gustav Anolph Kleene, PhD, professor of economics
1937 - Wilbur Marshall Urban, former president of the American Philosophical Association and philosopher of language
1936 - Henry Knox Sherrill, DD, Bishop of Massachusetts
1935 - Samuel Eliot Morison, PhD, professor and historian
1934 - Theodore Leslie Shear, PhD, archaeologist and educator
1933 - Remsen Brinckerhoff Ogilby, Trinity College president (1920-1943), Episcopal priest, and educator
1932 - Kenneth Ballard Murdock, PhD, scholar and educator
1931 - Remsen Brinckerhoff Ogilby, Trinity College president (1920-1943), Episcopal priest, and educator
1930 - Andrew Keogh, LittD, president of American Library Association, head librarian at Yale University, and educator
1929 - Charles McLean Andrews, LHD, former president of the American Historical Association, Pulitzer Prize-winning scholar, educator, and historian
1928 - George Daniel Olds, LLD, former president of Amherst College, mathematician, and educator
1927 - Marshall Bowyer Stewart, Protestant Episcopal theologian and educator
1926 - Robert Ernest Vinson, DD, LLD, president of Case Western Reserve University and Presbyterian minister
1925 - William Lawrence, DD, LLD, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts
1924 - Winchell Smith, playwright
1923 - Lawson Purdy ‘84, LLD, General Director of the Charity Organization Society, former president of the New York City Department of Taxes and Assessments, and tax reform advocate

James Rowland Angell, LLD, president of Yale University, psychologist, and educator
Charles Harold Herford, LittD, English literary scholar and critic
Charles Henry Brent, DD, LLD, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Western New York

1922 - Charles Seymour, PhD, historian and academic
1921 - Magnus W. Alexander, electrical engineer and technical designer

Vittorio Rolandi Ricci, Italian ambassador to the US

1920 - John Marshall Holcombe, MA, director of Fidelity Trust Company, insurance executive, civic leader, and educator
1919 - Elbert Henry Gary LLD, ScD, co-founder of US Steel, lawyer, county judge, and business executive
1918 - George Wharton Pepper, lawyer and educator

Former US President Theodore Roosevelt delivered an address the day before Commencement 1918

Sources

Trinity College Commencement Programs