Carleton College will award the Bachelor of Arts degree to the 487 graduating members of the Class of 2015 on Saturday, June 13, in a ceremony beginning at 9:30 a.m. on the Bald Spot, the lawn west of Hulings Hall on the Carleton campus. A celebratory picnic on the Bald Spot will follow. In the event of severe weather, commencement will be held indoors at the Recreation Center. Seating is available to accommodate all guests, whether outdoors or indoors, and no tickets are required, and the ceremony will be broadcasted live online.
Following remarks by Carleton College President Steven Poskanzer, two seniors will address the graduating class, chosen by a panel of their peers. This year’s senior commencement speakers, both English majors, are Sam Braslow (Los Angeles) and Anna Donnella (St. Davids, Pa.)
Carleton College will then award an honorary doctorate, the highest honor given by the College, to a recipient who will briefly address the graduating class. This year’s honorary degree recipient is Peter Schjeldahl, Carleton Class of 1964, staff writer and art critic for The New Yorker magazine.
Schjeldahl's writing has also appeared in Artforum, Art in America, the New York Times Magazine, Vogue, and Vanity Fair. He has received the Clark Prize for Excellence in Arts Writing from the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, recognizing writers who advance public appreciation of visual art in a way that “is grounded in scholarship yet appeals to a broad range of audiences”; the Frank Jewett Mather Award from the College Art Association, for excellence in art criticism; the Howard Vursell Memorial Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, for “recent prose that merits recognition for the quality of its style”; and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He is the author of four books of criticism, including “The Hydrogen Jukebox: Selected Writings” and “Let’s See: Writings on Art from The New Yorker.”
Also a poet and educator, Schjeldahl has published several books of poetry and taught in the Department of Visual and Environmental studies at Harvard University.
For further information, including disability accommodations, contact the Carleton College Office of College Relations at (507) 222-4309 or email kraadt@carleton.edu. The Bald Spot is located on the Carleton campus between College and Winona Streets in Northfield.
