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Williams Announces Commencement Speakers and Honorary Degree Candidates
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., May 1, 2008 -- Acclaimed artist and sculptor Richard Serra will be the principal speaker at Williams College's 219th Commencement on Sunday, June 1. Financial director and advisor Robert Lipp will be the baccalaureate speaker on Saturday afternoon, May 31. Former Secretary of State George Shultz will hold a public conversation on Saturday morning, May 31.
Actor, director, and author LeVar Burton was to give the baccalaureate address but later informed the college that a new professional commitment would prevent his being in Williamstown that weekend.
During the Commencement ceremonies on June 1, President of the College Morton Owen Schapiro will confer honorary degrees on Serra, Lipp, Shultz, British economist Frances Cairncross, and women's health advocate Dr. Nawal Nour.
Richard Serra
American artist Richard Serra is best known for his monumental, site-specific sculptures made from plates of rusted steel. His "challenging and innovative work" has "radicalized and extended the definition of sculpture" (Museum of Modern Art).
Most striking about Serra's sculptures is their size: some weigh hundreds of tons, and viewers can literally walk through the canyons formed by the curved metal slabs. Space, and especially the display site, is crucial to Serra's work.
He has exhibited extensively in major museums and exhibitions throughout the world, and has created site-specific sculptures for both public and private venues in North America and Europe. "Snake," a long, sinuous piece that resembles a serpent, is on display at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, along with seven other Serra works. "Fulcrum," a 55-foot steel sculpture, stands outside the Liverpool Street station in London, and "Charlie Brown," at 60 feet, stands inside Gap Inc. headquarters in San Francisco.
In summer 2007, the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) held a retrospective of Serra's work titled "Forty Years," which included major sculptures like "Intersection II" and "Torqued Ellipse IV" as well as three new pieces.
For this retrospective, MOMA allotted 20,000 square feet of open space for a new sculpture described by The New Yorker as Serra's "masterpiece so far." "Sequence" creates a maze of metal to be explored and experienced: "the effect is like materialized music, actuated by your movement."
Serra was born in San Francisco in 1939. After earning a B.A. in English literature from the University of California, he supported himself by working at steel mills and shipyards. During those years, he developed an interest in industrial materials, which would influence his later work. Serra trained as a painter at Yale University's School of Art and Architecture, where he worked with Josef Albers on his book, "The Interaction of Color" (1963). He received his M.F.A. in 1964.
Robert I. Lipp
Robert I. Lipp retires in June 2008 from the Williams Board of Trustees, on which he has served since 1999. He is chair of the Executive Committee and serves on the Board's Alumni Relations and Development, Audit, Budget and Financial Planning, and Instruction and Finance Committees. Lipp plays a major role in The Williams Campaign and serves as one of five campaign co-chairs.
He has served J.P. Morgan Chase as a senior advisor since 2005. Lipp served Travelers Insurance as chief executive from the end of 1993 to early 2000. He was named chairman of The St. Paul Travelers Companies in April 2004.
He began his career in banking at Chemical Bank (now J.P. Morgan Chase), where he rose to the position of president and director, leaving there in 1986 to join what ultimately became Citigroup. He retired from Citigroup as chairman and chief executive of the company's Global Consumer Group and member of the Office of the Chairman in 2001.
He serves as a director of J.P. Morgan Chase & Company, The Travelers Insurance Companies, and Accenture Ltd. He is director and former president of the New York City Ballet and previously a trustee at Carnegie Hall.
He received his B.A. from Williams in 1960, his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School in 1963, and his J.D. from New York University in 1969. Lipp has taught a Winter Study course at Williams titled "Managing Nonprofits: An Insider's Look."
He established the Bari Lipp Endowment in Dance at Williams in memory of his first wife, Bari Lipp. He has two children: Wendy, Williams Class of 1990, and Jeff, Williams Class of 1992 and is married to Martha Berman.
George P. Shultz
President Nixon appointed George Shultz Secretary of Labor in 1969. In June 1970, he became director of the Office of Management and Budget. In May 1972, he was named Secretary of the Treasury, a post he held two years.
He left government service in 1974 to become president and director of the Bechtel Group, Inc., where he remained until 1982, when he joined the Reagan administration serving as chairman of the President's Economic Policy Advisory Board (1981-82) and Secretary of State (1982-1989). He rejoined the Bechtel Group as director and senior counselor and rejoined Stanford University as Professor of International Economics at the Graduate School of Business.
Shultz is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor; the Seoul Peace Prize; the Eisenhower Medal for Leadership and Service; and the Reagan Distinguished American Award.
His publications include his memoir, "Turmoil and Triumph: My Years as Secretary of State" and the recent, "Putting Our House in Order: A Citizen's guide to Social Security and Health Care Reform."
He graduated from Princeton University in 1942, then joined the U.S. Marine Corps and served through 1945. In 1949, he earned a Ph.D. in industrial economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he taught until 1957, and then at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business where he was named dean in 1962.
Frances Cairncross
Frances Cairncross, a British economist, journalist, and academic, is Rector of Exeter College, Oxford, with which Williams operates the Williams-Exeter Program.
She received her degree in modern history from St. Anne's College, Oxford, and later completed a master's degree in economics at Brown University.
After spending 11 years working for The Guardian, she joined The Economist in 1984 and was on the staff for 20 years, most recently as management editor. She also has been on the financial staff of The Times, The Banker, and The Observer.
Her books include "Costing the Earth: The Challenges for Government, the Opportunities for Business," and "Green, Inc." Both were written while she worked as environment editor of The Economist between 1989 and 1994. For her coverage during that period, she won the first Reuter's-Alpe Action Award.
Cairncross' latest book, "The Company of the Future," was published in 2002 by Harvard Business School Press. She is also the author of "Death of Distance 2.0: How the Communications Revolution Will Change Our Lives," a major book on the impact of technology on society and business, first published in 1997 and republished in a new edition in 2001.
She has also served as the governor of Britain's National Institute of Economic and Social Research and was a member of the Council of the Institute for Fiscal Studies; an honorary fellow of St. Anne's College, Oxford; a Visiting Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford; and a non-executive director of Alliance and Leicester, a major UK bank. She chaired the Economic and Social Research Council for six years until 2007 and was president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 2005-06.
Nawal Nour
Dr. Nawal M. Nour is the founder of the first and, to date, only hospital center in the United States devoted to the medical needs of African women who have undergone female genital cutting. "It hit me to the core," Nour has said in interviews, "that we need to find ways to stop this practice."
A secular Muslim, Nour was born in Sudan, raised in Egypt, and educated in Britain and the United States. She received a degree from Brown University and an M.D. from Harvard Medical School.
During her residency, Nour began to work among Boston's African immigrant population. She received permission from the Brigham and Women's Hospital to open the African Women's Health Center in 1999. The clinic became popular, it was reported, mostly because the patients found understanding from Nour. Massachusetts alone has approximately 7,000 immigrants and refugees who have been victims of female genital cutting. It is estimated that 130 million women worldwide suffer from this practice.
She is the primary author of "Female Genital Cutting, Clinical Management of Circumcised Women." This educational slide-lecture kit, created while Nour served on a female genital cutting task force for the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, aims to educate obstetricians-gynecologists on the medical management of circumcised women in the United States and Canada.
In 2003, Nour was honored with a MacArthur Foundation fellowship worth $500,000, which she used to advance her work. Her ambition is to help grass-root organizations in Africa that are working to stop female circumcision.
Information about Commencement
In addition to the formal academic procession and the awarding of degrees, Commencement includes recognition of the National Olmsted Prizes for Secondary School Teaching recipients, announcement of the William Bradford Turner Citizenship Prize, brief speeches by three members of the Senior Class, and the Commencement Address.
Every effort will be made to hold the ceremony outdoors on West College Lawn and the public is invited. In case of heavy rain or threat of lightning, the ceremony will be moved to Lansing-Chapman Hockey Rink for indoor Commencement. If moved indoors, admission is by ticket only. Additional seating will be available on a first come basis in Chandler Gymnasium where the ceremony will be broadcast on a large screen. Tickets are not required for seating in Chandler Gymnasium.
For more information, go to www.williams.edu/home/commencement/
***
For building locations on the Williams campus, please consult the map outside the driveway entrance to the Security Office located in Hopkins Hall on Main Street (Rte. 2), next to the Thompson Memorial Chapel, or call the Office of Public Affairs (413) 597-4277. The map can also be found on the web at www.williams.edu/home/campusmap/
END
Actor, director, and author LeVar Burton was to give the baccalaureate address but later informed the college that a new professional commitment would prevent his being in Williamstown that weekend.
During the Commencement ceremonies on June 1, President of the College Morton Owen Schapiro will confer honorary degrees on Serra, Lipp, Shultz, British economist Frances Cairncross, and women's health advocate Dr. Nawal Nour.
Richard Serra
American artist Richard Serra is best known for his monumental, site-specific sculptures made from plates of rusted steel. His "challenging and innovative work" has "radicalized and extended the definition of sculpture" (Museum of Modern Art).
Most striking about Serra's sculptures is their size: some weigh hundreds of tons, and viewers can literally walk through the canyons formed by the curved metal slabs. Space, and especially the display site, is crucial to Serra's work.
He has exhibited extensively in major museums and exhibitions throughout the world, and has created site-specific sculptures for both public and private venues in North America and Europe. "Snake," a long, sinuous piece that resembles a serpent, is on display at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, along with seven other Serra works. "Fulcrum," a 55-foot steel sculpture, stands outside the Liverpool Street station in London, and "Charlie Brown," at 60 feet, stands inside Gap Inc. headquarters in San Francisco.
In summer 2007, the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) held a retrospective of Serra's work titled "Forty Years," which included major sculptures like "Intersection II" and "Torqued Ellipse IV" as well as three new pieces.
For this retrospective, MOMA allotted 20,000 square feet of open space for a new sculpture described by The New Yorker as Serra's "masterpiece so far." "Sequence" creates a maze of metal to be explored and experienced: "the effect is like materialized music, actuated by your movement."
Serra was born in San Francisco in 1939. After earning a B.A. in English literature from the University of California, he supported himself by working at steel mills and shipyards. During those years, he developed an interest in industrial materials, which would influence his later work. Serra trained as a painter at Yale University's School of Art and Architecture, where he worked with Josef Albers on his book, "The Interaction of Color" (1963). He received his M.F.A. in 1964.
Robert I. Lipp
Robert I. Lipp retires in June 2008 from the Williams Board of Trustees, on which he has served since 1999. He is chair of the Executive Committee and serves on the Board's Alumni Relations and Development, Audit, Budget and Financial Planning, and Instruction and Finance Committees. Lipp plays a major role in The Williams Campaign and serves as one of five campaign co-chairs.
He has served J.P. Morgan Chase as a senior advisor since 2005. Lipp served Travelers Insurance as chief executive from the end of 1993 to early 2000. He was named chairman of The St. Paul Travelers Companies in April 2004.
He began his career in banking at Chemical Bank (now J.P. Morgan Chase), where he rose to the position of president and director, leaving there in 1986 to join what ultimately became Citigroup. He retired from Citigroup as chairman and chief executive of the company's Global Consumer Group and member of the Office of the Chairman in 2001.
He serves as a director of J.P. Morgan Chase & Company, The Travelers Insurance Companies, and Accenture Ltd. He is director and former president of the New York City Ballet and previously a trustee at Carnegie Hall.
He received his B.A. from Williams in 1960, his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School in 1963, and his J.D. from New York University in 1969. Lipp has taught a Winter Study course at Williams titled "Managing Nonprofits: An Insider's Look."
He established the Bari Lipp Endowment in Dance at Williams in memory of his first wife, Bari Lipp. He has two children: Wendy, Williams Class of 1990, and Jeff, Williams Class of 1992 and is married to Martha Berman.
George P. Shultz
President Nixon appointed George Shultz Secretary of Labor in 1969. In June 1970, he became director of the Office of Management and Budget. In May 1972, he was named Secretary of the Treasury, a post he held two years.
He left government service in 1974 to become president and director of the Bechtel Group, Inc., where he remained until 1982, when he joined the Reagan administration serving as chairman of the President's Economic Policy Advisory Board (1981-82) and Secretary of State (1982-1989). He rejoined the Bechtel Group as director and senior counselor and rejoined Stanford University as Professor of International Economics at the Graduate School of Business.
Shultz is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor; the Seoul Peace Prize; the Eisenhower Medal for Leadership and Service; and the Reagan Distinguished American Award.
His publications include his memoir, "Turmoil and Triumph: My Years as Secretary of State" and the recent, "Putting Our House in Order: A Citizen's guide to Social Security and Health Care Reform."
He graduated from Princeton University in 1942, then joined the U.S. Marine Corps and served through 1945. In 1949, he earned a Ph.D. in industrial economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he taught until 1957, and then at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business where he was named dean in 1962.
Frances Cairncross
Frances Cairncross, a British economist, journalist, and academic, is Rector of Exeter College, Oxford, with which Williams operates the Williams-Exeter Program.
She received her degree in modern history from St. Anne's College, Oxford, and later completed a master's degree in economics at Brown University.
After spending 11 years working for The Guardian, she joined The Economist in 1984 and was on the staff for 20 years, most recently as management editor. She also has been on the financial staff of The Times, The Banker, and The Observer.
Her books include "Costing the Earth: The Challenges for Government, the Opportunities for Business," and "Green, Inc." Both were written while she worked as environment editor of The Economist between 1989 and 1994. For her coverage during that period, she won the first Reuter's-Alpe Action Award.
Cairncross' latest book, "The Company of the Future," was published in 2002 by Harvard Business School Press. She is also the author of "Death of Distance 2.0: How the Communications Revolution Will Change Our Lives," a major book on the impact of technology on society and business, first published in 1997 and republished in a new edition in 2001.
She has also served as the governor of Britain's National Institute of Economic and Social Research and was a member of the Council of the Institute for Fiscal Studies; an honorary fellow of St. Anne's College, Oxford; a Visiting Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford; and a non-executive director of Alliance and Leicester, a major UK bank. She chaired the Economic and Social Research Council for six years until 2007 and was president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 2005-06.
Nawal Nour
Dr. Nawal M. Nour is the founder of the first and, to date, only hospital center in the United States devoted to the medical needs of African women who have undergone female genital cutting. "It hit me to the core," Nour has said in interviews, "that we need to find ways to stop this practice."
A secular Muslim, Nour was born in Sudan, raised in Egypt, and educated in Britain and the United States. She received a degree from Brown University and an M.D. from Harvard Medical School.
During her residency, Nour began to work among Boston's African immigrant population. She received permission from the Brigham and Women's Hospital to open the African Women's Health Center in 1999. The clinic became popular, it was reported, mostly because the patients found understanding from Nour. Massachusetts alone has approximately 7,000 immigrants and refugees who have been victims of female genital cutting. It is estimated that 130 million women worldwide suffer from this practice.
She is the primary author of "Female Genital Cutting, Clinical Management of Circumcised Women." This educational slide-lecture kit, created while Nour served on a female genital cutting task force for the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, aims to educate obstetricians-gynecologists on the medical management of circumcised women in the United States and Canada.
In 2003, Nour was honored with a MacArthur Foundation fellowship worth $500,000, which she used to advance her work. Her ambition is to help grass-root organizations in Africa that are working to stop female circumcision.
Information about Commencement
In addition to the formal academic procession and the awarding of degrees, Commencement includes recognition of the National Olmsted Prizes for Secondary School Teaching recipients, announcement of the William Bradford Turner Citizenship Prize, brief speeches by three members of the Senior Class, and the Commencement Address.
Every effort will be made to hold the ceremony outdoors on West College Lawn and the public is invited. In case of heavy rain or threat of lightning, the ceremony will be moved to Lansing-Chapman Hockey Rink for indoor Commencement. If moved indoors, admission is by ticket only. Additional seating will be available on a first come basis in Chandler Gymnasium where the ceremony will be broadcast on a large screen. Tickets are not required for seating in Chandler Gymnasium.
For more information, go to www.williams.edu/home/commencement/
***
For building locations on the Williams campus, please consult the map outside the driveway entrance to the Security Office located in Hopkins Hall on Main Street (Rte. 2), next to the Thompson Memorial Chapel, or call the Office of Public Affairs (413) 597-4277. The map can also be found on the web at www.williams.edu/home/campusmap/
END
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