Campus & Community

Nominations Welcome for University’s 2019 Commencement Speaker

Monday, November 19, 2018, By News Staff
Syracuse University 2018 Commencement speaker Kathrine Switzer ’68, G’72

Syracuse University 2018 Commencement speaker Kathrine Switzer ’68, G’72

Members of the University community are invited to suggest a speaker for the 2019 Commencement.

The speaker is chosen through an annual selection process that starts when students, staff, faculty, alumni and others in the community offer nominees via the Suggest a Speaker website.

All names submitted through the website are compiled in an alphabetical, unranked list and given to the official speaker selection committee composed of senior class marshals (two seniors who represent the entire graduating class at Commencement and who chair the committee) and student marshals from each of the University’s schools and colleges (who represent their classmates).

This all-student committee reviews and deliberates the list of collected names and then presents a list of proposed speakers to Chancellor Kent Syverud, who then reviews the list and makes a final choice on the basis of relevance to the SU community, availability and reasonableness of cost.

All nominees for Commencement speaker must be eligible to receive an honorary degree from the University. A vote by the University Senate decides which honorary degree nominations are forwarded to the Chancellor for consideration. The University Senate Committee on Honorary Degrees hosts a website detailing its process and criteria for selection.

A suggestion for Commencement speaker should be based on the following considerations:

  • outstanding achievement in an academic field, the arts, business, etc.
  • innovative and creative achievements
  • humanitarian deeds and the degree to which the candidate’s activities have touched various lives
  • extent to which a candidate’s achievement represents sustained efforts over the course of his/her career
  • extent to which a candidate represents an outstanding model for SU graduates
  • the honor brought to SU should the candidate accept the nomination

Nominations are encouraged by the last day of the fall semester, Dec. 14.

The University has hosted a long list of distinguished Commencement speakers. The remarks and recorded video of the addresses given by the most recent speakers (dating back to 2002) can be viewed on the Commencement website.

SU’s 165th Commencement will take place on Sunday, May 12, 2019, in the Dome.