2012 Commencement Speaker Announced

Geoffrey Canada will speak at Penn's 256th commencement

Did You Know… 

that the University of Pennsylvania announced Geoffrey Canada as the speaker for the 256th commencement ceremony on May 14, 2012?  Canada is founder and president of the Harlem Children’s Zone, a comprehensive education and health program that aims to end the cycle of poverty for families in Central Harlem, and his work was featured in the 2010 documentary Waiting for Superman.

In addition to Canada, this year’s honorary degree recipients include: Ruzena Bajcsy, Founder, Penn’s General Robotics and Active Sensory Perception Laboratory, one of the world’s premier robotics research centers; Akira Endo, President, Biopharm Research Laboratories, and a research scientist whose work led to the development of cholesterol-lowering drugs; Peter D. Lax, a mathematician whose work at the intersection of theoretical and applied mathematics has had important implications in weather forecasting, airplane design and telecommunications signaling;  John R. Lewis, Representative, Georgia 5th Congressional District, and a leader of the American civil rights movement; David H. Petraeus, U.S. Army General (Retired), and Director, Central Intelligence Agency; and Anna Deavere Smith, an actress, author and playwright with a unique style of combining art and social commentary to create “documentary theater.”

For more on the announcement as well as complete biographies of all of the honorees, please read the Penn News release.