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- Talk
Can Be Really Cheap
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- Beyond
Fun and Games:
International Conference to be Held at Smith
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- Smith
Claims a Second Rhodes Scholar
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- Scholars
Gather to Discuss Midwifery
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Former NEA Chair to Speak
at Commencement
Jane Alexander, best known as a talented actress and former chairman
of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), will be the speaker
at Smith's 121st commencement on Sunday, May 16. Alexander, who
served the NEA from 1993 to 1997, was an outspoken defender of
the place of the arts in American life and a foe of congressional
cuts to the endowment's budget. As an actress she has performed
in plays and film. She received an Emmy nomination and the TV
Critics Circle Award for her performance as Eleanor Roosevelt
in Eleanor and Franklin: The White House Years and an Academy
Award nomination for her role in All the President's Men. Alexander
will receive an honorary degree at Smith Commencement.
Others receiving honorary degrees will
be:
- Hanan Ashrawi, human rights and women's
rights activist. Founder and secretary general of Miftah, the
Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and
Democracy, Ashrawi established the Palestinian Independent Commission
for Citizen's Rights and has served as minister of higher education
for the Palestinian Authority.
- Carol Gilligan, Patricia Albjerg Graham
Professor of Gender Studies at the Harvard University Graduate
School of Education, and founder of the collaborative Harvard
Project on Women's Psychology and Girls' Development. Author
of In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development
(1982), Gilligan has collaborated on the writing or editing of
five other books. Her research now extends to the study of healthy
resistance and courage in young boys, the power of education
and the role of gender in the process of human development and
social change.
- Lani Guinier, professor of law at
Harvard Law School. A former civil rights lawyer, she taught
previously at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. As a
civil rights lawyer she served more than 10 years with the NAACP
Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc. and the U.S. Department
of Justice.
- Romilar Thapar, historian, writer
and teacher and professor emeritus of history at Jawaharlal Nehru
University, New Delhi. A renowned historian of ancient and medieval
India and an important participant in the current struggle in
India over the interpretation of its past, Thapar is the spring
1999 William Allan Neilson Professor at Smith.
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