Release date: May 16, 2003
Contact: Deb Hammacher, Associate Director, University Media Relations,
at 404-727-0644 or dhammac@emory.edu

Emory Holds Commencement May 12 for 3,300+ Graduates

Nobel Prize-winning Irish poet Seamus Heaney received an honorary doctor of letters degree and delivered the keynote address at Emory University’s 158th commencement ceremony Monday, May 12, underscoring a 15-year relationship between the writer and the university. University President William M. Chace, a James Joyce scholar who will be retiring to the English department faculty this fall, presided over his last commencement, which included 3,302 graduates, so the choice of Heaney was fitting.

The three remaining honorary degree recipients also gave brief remarks: Anthony Fauci, M.D., of the National Institutes of Health; Atlanta native David Levering Lewis, the Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer of W.E.B. DuBois; and Carlton R. "Sam" Young, an internationally known composer for the United Methodist Church and professor emeritus of Emory’s Candler School of Theology.

Emory’s ties to Heaney go back 15 years when he presented the first Richard Ellmann Lectures in Modern Literature in 1988. Heaney’s papers for the three-lecture series were the seed that has grown into one of the finest literary archives of contemporary Irish poets in the world. The lecture series was established to honor the renowned literary scholar and biographer of Irish poet/playwright W.B. Yeats. Ellmann served as the university’s first Woodruff Professor.

More information is available on commencement, including the McMullan award recipient, the Brittain award recipient, and Emory's faculty awards.

Additional graduate information is available in the profile of the class of 2003.

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