Lafayette Will Award Five Honorary Degrees at 178th Commencement

Lafayette College President Daniel H. Weiss

Lafayette will award honorary degrees to five distinguished leaders at the 178th Commencement Saturday, May 25.

Read more Commencement coverage

Three of the honorands have special ties to the College. Daniel H. Weiss has served as the 16th president of Lafayette since July 1, 2005. He will be awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree. Joseph T. Cox ’68, headmaster of The Haverford School and a Lafayette trustee, will be awarded an honorary Doctor of Humanities degree. Robert A. Pastor ’69, a professor of international relations at American University, will be awarded an honorary Doctor of Public Service degree.

Joseph T. Cox ’68

An honorary Doctor of Literature degree will be awarded to the acclaimed British author Martin Amis.

The College announced previously that Anne-Marie Slaughter, one of the nation’s most influential commentators on international relations and global issues, will be the Commencement speaker. A professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University, she will assume the presidency of the New America Foundation in September 2013. Slaughter will be awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters degree.

Commencement will be held 2:30 p.m. on the Quad. The academic procession will begin at 2:15 p.m. The annual Baccalaureate service will be held 10:30 a.m. the same day, also on the Quad, and will feature a sermon by the Rev. Alexandra M. Hendrickson, College chaplain and director of religious and spiritual life. If it rains, one or both ceremonies may be held in Allan P. Kirby Sports Center. Commencement will also be broadcast live online. A link on the Lafayette homepage will provide a view of the ceremonies for those who can’t make it to campus.

Read details on the Commencement website

Robert Pastor ’69 introduces President Jimmy Carter during the inaugural Robert ’69 and Margaret Pastor Lecture in International Affairs April 22.

During Weiss’ presidency, in a time of unprecedented change in higher education in America and a time of economic uncertainty worldwide, Lafayette strengthened its academic core, enhanced its standing among the nation’s best small colleges, and solidified its relationship with its home city of Easton, among many other strides forward. Weiss will become the 14th president of Haverford College July 1.

Cox has served as the eighth headmaster of The Haverford School, Haverford, Pa., since 1998. He will retire effective June 30 after having served 15 years in the position. A Lafayette trustee since 2001, he has served as chair of the board’s Committee on Educational Policy and as a member of the Executive Committee since 2011, following eight years as vice chair of the Educational Policy Committee.

Author Martin Amis

Pastor is director of the Center for North American Studies and Center for Democracy and Election Management at American University. He was national security advisor for Latin America under President Jimmy Carter and has served as a consultant to the National Security Council, Department of State, Department of Defense, and other government agencies, foundations, corporations, and international organizations.

Anne-Marie Slaughter

Amis was named one of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945 by The Times of London in 2008. He is the author of 13 novels, two collections of stories, five collections of non-fiction, and a memoir. His first novel, The Rachel Papers, published in 1973, received the Society of Authors’ Somerset Maugham Award for the best first novel by a writer under the age of 35. His memoir, Experience, published in 2000, was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. Two of his works, Time’s Arrow, in 1991, and Yellow Dog, in 2003, have been listed for the Booker Prize as the best novel of the year.