Nobel Prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney is set to present the address at the College's 59th annual commencement ceremonies on Saturday, May 13 on Pritzlaff Fielda new day and location for CMC's graduation exercises.
Commencement will be held this year on a Saturday, and for the first time on Pritzlaff Field, south of Bauer Center. Ceremonies will include presentation of an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree to Heaney, and Doctor of Laws degrees to Houghton and Doreen Freeman, whothrough the Freeman Foundationhave provided support for important programs related to Asia, and Peter F. Barker '70 P'01, chairman of the Claremont McKenna College Board of Trustees.
Heaney, awarded the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature for what the Nobel committee described as "works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth, which exalt everyday miracles and the living past," grew up a country boy on a large farm in Northern Ireland, an upbringing rooted in much of his later poetry. At the age of 12, he won a scholarship to St. Columb's College, a Catholic boarding school, where he learned Latin and the Irish language. Within a few years, as a student at Queen's University of Belfast, Heaney turned his attention to English and literature and Anglo-Saxon studies, the latter of which would also influence the lines of his works.
Moving on to a teacher training college soon after his graduation, a headmaster introduced Heaney to the poems of Patrick Kavanagh and a short time later, Heaney began publishing his own poetry, emerging on the public's radar screen in the mid 1960s with his first collection, Death of a Naturalist (Faber & Faber, 1966).
The Irish poet, writer, and lecturer has been described as "one of the most significant poets writing in English, and the greatest Irish poet since Yeats" by the Los Angeles Times Book Review. His latest collection, District and Circle (Faber & Faber, published April 6, 2006 in the UK; May 2, 2006 in the United States), has already welcomed praise from Publishers Weekly, which concluded, "The latest from the Irish Nobel laureate may be his best in more than a decade."
Heaney's 1996 collection, The Spirit Level, won The Whitbread Book of the Year Award, a feat repeated in 1999 by his translation of the epic Beowulf.
Commencement scheduling is as follows:
Saturday, May 13:
9 a.m.: R.O.T.C. commissioning ceremony, Pickford Auditorium, Bauer Center
2 p.m.: Commencement ceremony, Pritzlaff Field
3:30 p.m.: Reception with President Pamela Gann for graduates, family and friends, Parents Field
(In the event of rain, Commencement exercises will be moved to Bridges Auditorium at 6 p.m.; preceded by a reception from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. in Collins Dining Hall.)
Sunday, May 14
10:30 a.m.: Baccalaureate service, Bridges Hall of Music; officiated by the Rev. Dr. Mary Ellen Kilsby, senior minister emerita at the First Congregational Church of Long Beach.
Commencement DVD
Professionally produced DVDs are available from the CMC Parents Club. DVDs are $55 and delivered to mailboxes by mid-July. DVDs include candid shots of the procession, all speeches, and a shot of every student receiving his or her diploma.
Copies may be pre-ordered through the Parents Club office: 909-607-0449
For additional information, please contact the Dean of the Faculty's office: 909-621-8117, or deanofthefaculty@claremontmckenna.edu.