Harvey Mudd College - Commencement Speakers

Commencement Speakers

Commencement speakers at Harvey Mudd College have included inventors, entertainers, educators, astronauts, and civil rights leaders, among others.

  • 2012 — Bill Nye (the Science Guy)
  • 2011 — Marissa Mayer
  • 2010 — Freeman A. Hrabowski III
  • 2009 — Dean Kamen
  • 2008 — Bill Nye (the Science Guy)
  • 2007 — Mae C. Jemison
  • 2006 — Joseph B. Platt (founding president of Harvey Mudd College)
  • 2005 — Michael G. Wilson
  • 2004 — Henry Petroski
  • 2003 — Orson Scott Card
  • 2002 — George "Pinky" Nelson
  • 2001 — Joseph Costello (Douglas Adams was originally scheduled to speak but died two days before the ceremony)
  • 2000 — Bill Nye (the Science Guy)
  • 1999 — Donna Shirley
  • 1998 — Sheila Widnall
  • 1997 — John Shalikashvili
  • 1996 — Clifford Stoll
  • 1995 — George E. Brown, Jr. (Democrat Representative)
  • 1994 — Walter E. Massey (Provost/VP Univ. Calif.; former President of NSF)
  • 1993 — Daniel Goldin
  • 1992 — Denis Hayes (Environmentalist)
  • 1991 — Ben J. Wattenberg (Author/Columnist/Commentator)
  • 1990 — Sandra Kurtzig (CEO/Founder of ASK Computers)
  • 1989 — Robert N. Bellah (Professor/Sociologist/Author)
  • 1988 — Ben Bova (Author/Editor/Lecturer)
  • 1987 — Ray Bradbury
  • 1986 — Margaret L.A. MacVicar (Dean for Undergraduate Education, MIT)
  • 1985 — Michael G. Wilson ’63 (Film Producer/Writer)
  • 1984 — Bill Cosby
  • 1983 — Arthur Laffer
  • 1982 — James L. Gould (Associate Professor of Biology, Princeton)
  • 1981 — Ray Bradbury (Science Fiction Writer)
  • 1980 — Walter J. Mead (Professor of Economics, UCSB)
  • 1979 — Richard F. Post (Deputy Associate Director of Magnetic Fusion Energy at UC Lawrence Livermore Laboratories)
  • 1978 — John A. McCone (Former Director of CIA and Former Chair of US Atomic Energy Commission)
  • 1977 — D. Kenneth Baker (President, HMC)
  • 1976 — Joseph B. Platt (President, HMC)
  • 1975 — E. M. Benson, Jr. (Executive Vice President and Director, Atlantic Richfield Co., and HMC Trustee)
  • 1974 — Alvin M. Weinberg (Director, Office of Research and Development, Federal Energy Office)
  • 1973 — William H. Davenport (Founding Professor, HMC)
  • 1972 — Harvey Mudd II (Environmentalist)
  • 1971 — Myron Tribus (Senior Vice President, Xerox Corp.)
  • 1970 — Paul D. Saltman (Provost, Revelle College, UCSD)
  • 1969 — Eugene Hotchkiss III (Executive Dean, Catham College)
  • 1968 — Joseph B. Platt (President, HMC)
  • 1967 — Herbert F. York (Professor of Physics and Former Chancellor, UCSD)
  • 1966 — T. Keith Glennan (President, Case Institute of Technology)
  • 1965 — Frank R. Collbohm (President, The RAND Corp.)
  • 1964 — Herman T. Spieth (Chancellor, UCR)
  • 1963 — Detlev W. Bronk (President, The Rockefeller Institute)
  • 1962 — Donald J. Russell (President, Southern Pacific Company)
  • 1961 — Kenneth S. Pitzer (Dean of the College of Chemistry, UCB)
  • 1960 — Leonard Carmichael (Secretary, Smithsonian Institution)
  • 1959 — Lee A. DuBridge (President, Caltech)

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Famous quotes containing the words commencement and/or speakers:

    [T]he late Samuel McChord Crothers, genial wit and essayist, ... after listening to the speeches at a certain Harvard Commencement remarked that he gathered that the world had been in great danger, but that all would now be well.
    —For the State of Massachusetts, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)

    The problems of society will also be the problems of the predominant language of that society. It is the carrier of its perceptions, its attitudes, and its goals, for through it, the speakers absorb entrenched attitudes. The guilt of English then must be recognized and appreciated before its continued use can be advocated.
    Njabulo Ndebele (b. 1948)