1919-2007
Printable texts of available Commencement Speeches are linked. Recent student speeches and Baccalaurate speeches are also available at http://digitalcommons.conncoll.edu/collrel/
| Robert D. Ballard | 89th Commencement 2007 | Deep-sea explorer |
| Wangari Maathai | 88th Commencement 2006 | Nobel Prize-winning environmental activist; veterinary science professor |
| Estelle Parsons '49 | 87th Commencement 2005 | Actor |
| Anita DeFrantz '74 | 86th Commencement 2004 | Olympic medalist, lifetime member and former vice president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) |
| Wally Lamb | 85th Commencement 2003 | Novelist |
| Joyce Carol Oates | 84th Commencement 2002 | Author |
| Wynton Marsalis | 83rd Commencement 2001 | Pulitzer Prize-winning jazz musician |
| E. O. Wilson | 82nd Commencement 2000 | Pulitzer Prize-winning Biologist |
| Frank McCourt | 81st Commencement 1999 | Author |
| Honorable Andrew Young | 80th Commencement 1998 | US House of Representatives, Former Ambassador to UN |
| Harris Wofford | 79th Commencement 1997 | CEO, Corp. for National Service |
| Tom Brokaw | 78th Commencement 1996 | Journalist, News Anchor |
| Russell Baker | 77th Commencement 1995 | Journalist |
| Kimba Wood | 76th Commencement 1994 | US District Court Judge |
| Eugene V. Gallagher | 75th Commencement 1993 | Professor of Religious Studies, Connecticut College |
| William Kane Reilly | 74th Commencement 1992 | Administrator, US Environmental Protection Agency |
| Alvin F. Poussaint | 73rd Commencement 1991 | Professor of Psychology Harvard Medical School |
| Admiral William J. Crowe, Jr. | 72nd Commencement 1990 | USN (Ret.) Professor of Geopolitics, University of Oklahoma |
| Leonard Lauder | 71st Commencement 1989 | President and CEO Estee Lauder, Inc. |
| Guido Calabresi | 70th Commencement 1988 | Dean, Yale University School of Law |
| Marian Edelman | 69th Commencement 1987 | Civil Rights Leader |
| James Wooten | 68th Commencement 1986 | Journalist, Writer, Commentator |
| Andy Rooney | 67th Commencement 1985 | Writer, Commentator |
| Charlayne Hunter-Gault | 66th Commencement 1984 | TV Journalist |
| Lewis Thomas | 65th Commencement 1983 | Physician, Educator, Author |
| Honorable Christopher Dodd | 64th Commencement 1982 | US Senator |
| Honorable Patricia Wald | 63rd Commencement 1981 | Judge, US Court of Appeals |
| Alan Alda | 62nd Commencement 1980 | Actor, Writer, Director |
| Archibald Cox | 61st Commencement 1979 | Professor, Harvard University |
| Dr. Henry Steele Commager | 60th Commencement 1978 | Professor Emeritus of History, Amherst College |
| John Kenneth Galbraith | 59th Commencement 1977 | Professor of Economics, Harvard University |
| George Plimpton | 58th Commencement 1976 | Author, Editor |
| Isaac Asimov | 57th Commencement 1975 | Author |
| R. Buckminster Fuller | 56th Commencement 1974 | Architect, Mathematician |
| Honorable Lowell P. Weicker | 55th Commencement 1973 | US Senator |
| Ralph Nader | 54th Commencement 1972 | Consumer Advocate |
| Honorable Ella T. Grasso | 53rd Commencement 1971 | US House of Representatives |
| John Doar | 52nd Commencement 1970 | Bedford-Stuyvesant Development and Services Group |
| Whitney M. Young | 51st Commencement 1969 | National Urban League, Inc., NY, NY |
| Edwin O. Reischauer | 50th Commencement 1968 | Professor, Harvard University |
| Rosemary Park | 49th Commencement 1967 | President, Barnard College |
| Kingman Brewster, Jr. | 48th Commencement 1966 | President, Yale University |
| August Heckscher | 47th Commencement 1965 | Twentieth Century Fund |
| Honorable Edith Green | 46th Commencement 1964 | US House of Representatives |
| Honorable Stewart L. Udall | 45th Commencement 1963 | Secretary of the Interior |
| Honorable Abraham A. Ribicoff | 44th Commencement 1962 | Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare |
| Dr. Henry Steele Commager | 43rd Commencement 1961 | Amherst College |
| Laurance S. Rockefeller | 42nd Commencement 1960 | |
| William C. DeVane | 41st Commencement 1959 | Dean, Yale College, Yale University |
| John W. Gardner | 40th Commencement 1958 | President, Carnegie Corporation of NY |
| Mark Van Doren | 39th Commencement 1957 | Poet, Columbia University |
| George F. Kennan | 38th Commencement 1956 | Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ |
| Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. | 37th Commencement 1955 | Department of History, Harvard University |
| Erwin D. Canham | 36th Commencement 1954 | Editor, Christian Science Monitor |
| Earl J. McGrath | 35th Commencement 1953 | Former US Commissioner of Education |
| G. Keith Funston | 34th Commencement 1952 | President, New York Stock Exchange |
| Harry Allen Overstreet | 33rd Commencement 1951 | Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, College of the City of New York |
| Dr. Ralph J. Bunche | 32nd Commencement 1950 | Director, Department of Trusteeship and Information from Non-Self-Governing Territories, UN |
| Dr. Howard Mumford Jones | 31st Commencement 1949 | Professor of English, Harvard University |
| Norman Cousins | 30th Commencement 1948 | Editor, "The Saturday Review of Literature" |
| Eugene O'Neill, Jr. | 29th Commencement 1947 | Department of Greek, Yale University |
| Karl T. Compton | 28th Commencement 1946 | President, MIT |
| Honorable Wilbert Snow (Feb.) Dr. Benjamin Wright (Sept.) |
27th Commencement 1945 | Lieutenant Governor, Conn.; Professor of Government, Harvard University, respectively |
| Alverna Burdick (Feb.), C. Mildred Thompson (June), Mary Foulke Morrison (Sept.) | 26th Commencement 1944 | Respectively: Dean of Students; Dean of Vassar College, Secretary of the Board of Trustees |
| Henry Wallace | 25th Commencement 1943 | Vice President of the US |
| Mary Foulke Morrison | 24th Commencement 1942 | Secretary of the Board of Trustees |
| Arthur T. Vanderbilt | 23rd Commencement 1941 | Former President, American Bar Association |
| Honorable Katharine F. Lenroot | 22nd Commencement 1940 | U.S. Dept. of Labor |
| James G. McDonald | 21st Commencement 1939 | President, Brooklyn Institiute of Arts & Sciences |
| Alice Hamilton | 20th Commencement 1938 | Harvard University |
| Marion Edwards | 19th Commencement 1937 | Bryn Mawr |
| Christian Gauss | 18th Commencement 1936 | Princeton University |
| Honorable Josephine Roche | 17th Commencement 1935 | Asst. Secretary of the Treasury |
| George E. Vincent | 16th Commencement 1934 | Past President of Rockefeller Foundation |
| Harvey N. Davis | 15th Commencement 1933 | President, Stevens Institute of Technology |
| Judge Florence E. Allen | 14th Commencement 1932 | Chicago |
| Frank Aydelotte | 13th Commencement 1931 | Swarthmore College |
| Jane Addams | 12th Commencement 1930 | Hull House, Chicago |
| William Ernest Hocking | 11th Commencement 1929 | Harvard University |
| William Starr Myers | 10th Commencement 1928 | Princeton University |
| Henry Sloan Coffin | 9th Commencement 1927 | President, Union Theological Seminary, NYC |
| Ada L. Comstock | 8th Commencement 1926 | Radcliffe |
| James T. Shotwell | 7th Commencement 1925 | Columbia University |
| Honorable Royal S. Copeland | 6th Commencement 1924 | US Senate, New York |
| Lindsay Roberts | 5th Commencement 1923 | Professor of Government, Columbia University |
| Reverend W. Douglas Mackenzie | 4th Commencement 1922 | Hartford Theological Foundation |
| Reverend Charles Reynold Brown | 3rd Commencement 1921 | Yale University |
| Reverend Samuel McChord Crathers | 2nd Commencement 1920 | Cambridge University |
| Ralph Barton Perry | 1st Commencement 1919 | Harvard University |
Last Modified: Tuesday, November 13, 2007 16:13