On Rally Day, Feb. 22, 2024, President Sarah Willie-LeBreton announced that five distinguished leaders — Maria Luisa Arroyo Cruzado, Ruth E. Carter, Ertharin Cousin, Jill Lepore and Reeta Roy — will be recognized with honorary degrees from Smith College on Sunday, May 19, 2024. She also announced that instead of a traditional single keynote speaker during graduation, the five honorands will present short addresses to the Class of 2024.
Maria Luisa Arroyo Cruzado is a poet and intersectional feminist educator. Her achievements include being named inaugural poet laureate of Springfield, Massachusetts from 2014 to 2016; a 2016 New England Public Radio Arts & Humanities Award recipient; a 2019 Rising Star Teaching Fellow at the Desert Nights, Rising Stars Conference; a 2021 Assets for Artists grant recipient; and a 2022 ValleyCreates Project Evolution Grant recipient. Arroyo Cruzado is pursuing her Ph.D. in comparative literature as a Clark Diversity Fellow at Binghamton University. She also teaches creative nonfiction in the M.F.A. program at Bay Path University.
Ruth E. Carter, a Springfield, Massachusetts native, is an Academy Award-winning American film costume designer for her work in the blockbuster films “Black Panther” and “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.” She is the first Black person to win the Academy Award in Costume Design, as well as the first Black woman to win multiple Academy Awards in any category. Throughout her career, Carter has collaborated with directors such as Spike Lee, Steven Spielberg, Ava DuVernay and Ryan Coogler.
Ertharin Cousin is the CEO and managing director of Food Systems for the Future, a nutrition impact investment fund. She is also a Distinguished Fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Robert Weizsäcker Fellow; and a visiting scholar at the Stanford University Center on Food Security and Environment. From 2012 until 2017, Cousin acted as the Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), leading the 14,000-member team in feeding more than 80 million people annually. In addition to her global hunger work, Cousin worked to combat hunger within the US as the executive vice president and chief operating officer of America’s Second Harvest (Feeding America).
Jill Lepore is the David Woods Kemper ’41 Professor of American History and Affiliate Professor of Law at Harvard University. She is also a staff writer at The New Yorker, writing about American history, law, literature and politics. Lepore authored the Time magazine’s international bestseller “These Truths: A History of the United States.” Her writing has been awarded the Bancroft Prize, the Ralph Waldo Emerson Award, the Berkshire Prize, the Anisfield-Wolf Award for the best nonfiction book on race, Time magazine’s Best Nonfiction Book of the Year and the Mark Lynton History Prize.
Reeta Roy is the CEO of Mastercard Foundation and an international philanthropist with almost three decades of experience. Roy focuses on the Mastercard Foundation’s work on Africa and serving young Indigenous Canadians. Today, the foundation deploys over $8 billion to improve education, deepen financial inclusion and build resilience in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the next decade, the foundation plans to enact Young Africa Works, which will enable 30 million young Africans to access dignified and fulfilling work, while directing 75% of the foundation’s partnerships and funding to African organizations.
Bringing diverse professional backgrounds — in the arts, academia, journalism, social justice, philanthropy and business — the five honorands will bring their unique perspectives to this year’s Commencement in an exciting new format.
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