MIDDLEBURY, Vt. ? Former President of the United States Bill Clinton will deliver the commencement address at the Middlebury College graduation ceremony on May 27. President Clinton will also receive an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree. Robert De Cormier, Janet Tiebout Hanson, James Gustave Speth, Marc A. and Dana Lim vanderHeyden, and Dr. Huda Y. Zoghbi will receive honorary degrees as well.

James Gustave Speth oversees Yale University’s graduate and professional school of the environment, the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, where his title is Dean and Sara Shallenberger Brown Professor in the Practice of Environmental Policy.  He will receive an honorary Doctor of Science degree. Speth is the former administrator of the United Nations Development Program; the founder and former president of World Resources Institute, a center for policy research; and a co-founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council. He is the father of Catherine McCullough, a member of the Middlebury College class of 1991.

The 15th president of Saint Michael’s College in Colchester, Marc A. vanderHeyden, and his wife, Dana Lim vanderHeyden, will receive an honorary Doctor of Letters degree. Marc vanderHeyden assumed the presidency at St. Michael’s in 1996 and announced last year that he would step down from the position in June of 2007.  Prior to his arrival at St. Michael’s, he held various academic and administrative posts at Marist College, Cedar Crest College and Rider University. A native of Belgium who is fluent in three languages, he holds master’s and doctoral degrees in history from The Catholic University of America. 

Dana vanderHeyden, who served in various roles as a faculty member and academic administrator for almost three decades, first at Cedar Crest College and then at Dutchess Community College, is an active community member and supporter of the arts both at St. Michael’s and in Vermont. She has served on the board of directors of numerous organizations, and is currently a member of the board of Vermont Public Radio, Burlington City Arts and the Region I Board of the Vermont Symphony Orchestra.  A native of Prague, she is also fluent in three languages.

Dr. Huda Y. Zoghbi, who will receive an honorary Doctor of Science degree, is a professor in the Baylor College of Medicine Departments of Pediatrics, Molecular and Human Genetics, and Neurology and Neuroscience, and an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Center.  In 1999 she discovered the gene mutation that causes the rare, disabling neurodevelopmental disorder Rett syndrome.  She is the mother of Roula Zoghbi, a member of the Middlebury College class of 2007.