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Remembering Commencement 2006
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May 14, 2006
As proud families and friends watched, 375 students
received their diplomas during the College's 113th
Commencement on May 14 in Bridges Auditorium.
Students in the Class of 2006 came from as far away as
Bulgaria, Ghana and India. Their majors ran the gamut from
chemistry to psychology to art history.
As they headed off to graduate fellowships, careers and other
adventures, the class joined the ranks of more than
19,000 Pomona alumni living around the globe.
In his charge to the class of 2006,
Pomona College President David W. Oxtoby urged graduates to
take with them the fundamental values they've acquired at
Pomona: "a willingness to challenge accepted truths, an
openness to new facts and persuasive arguments, and an
engagement with the world and the difficult issues we face
together."
"Resist dogmatic stances and be prepared to change your
mind, of course, but at the same time be prepared to draw
the line when it comes to defining core values of free
expression and human dignity," Oxtoby said.
 James Solomon '06 and Senior Class President Caleb Oken-Berg
'06 gave the student speeches. Honorary degrees
were awarded to:
-- Eileen
Wilson-Oyelaran, president of Kalamazoo College in
Michigan, who gave the keynote address during the ceremony. A member of the Pomona
Class of 1969, she previously served as dean and vice
president at Salem College in Winston-Salem, NC. During her
10-year tenure, Salem strengthened its academic component by
renovating the science laboratories, creating a women in
science program, and establishing the Salem College Center
for Women Writers.
-- Rev. William Sloane Coffin Jr., (honored
posthumously) a renowned peace
activist and former civil rights leader, served as chaplain
of Yale University from 1958-1976 and later as a senior
minister of the prominent Riverside Church in New York City
for over 10 years. Coffin became famous at Yale University
in the 1960's for his opposition to the Vietnam War. Coffin is the author of
Letters to a Young Doubter (2005)
and The Heart is a Little to the Left (1999). Coffin died in
April at the age of 81, and
his wife, Randy, accepted the honorary degree at
Commencement.
-- Thomas Crow, Pomona Class of 1969 and an internationally
recognized art historian, is director of the Getty Research
Institute, one of the world’s largest research centers for
art history. Crow has written five books and also holds an
appointment as a professor of art history at the University
of Southern California.
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President David Oxtoby congratulates keynote
speaker Eileen Wilson-Oyelaran. |
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Award-winning poet Robert Mezey received the Trustee
Medal of Merit. Mezey is the author of nine
volumes of collected poetry, most recently Collected Poems
1952-1999 (Random House 2000), and the editor of nine
additional editions and anthologies, including A Word Like
Fire: Selected Poetry of Dick Barnes (2005). His awards
include The Poet’s Prize for Collected Poems and the P.E.N.
Poetry Award for Evening Wind (1987). He was a
professor of English and poet-in-residence at Pomona College
from 1976 until retiring in 1999.
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