Isabel Wilkerson to Give Middlebury College Commencement Address

Middlebury
Commencement

Sunday, May 27

10 a.m., Main Quad

Full Schedule

Watch Online

National Humanities me

dalist, Wilkerson spent 15 years working on her book, interviewing more than 1,200 people to tell one of the greatest underreported stories of the 20th century, that of the Great Migration. From 1915 to 1970, six million African-Americans fled the Jim Crow South in what became one of the largest internal migrations in United States history and one that permanently changed the social landscape of the country.

Published in 2010, The Warmth of Other Suns won numerous prizes, including the National Book Critics Circle Award. Wilkerson’s book was also named to more than 30 best-of-the-year lists, including the New York Times’ 10 Best Books of the Year and Amazon’s 5 Best Books of the Year.

Wilkerson won the Pulitzer Prize for her work as Chicago bureau chief of the New York Times in 1994, making her the first black woman in the history of American journalism to win a Pulitzer Prize and the first African American to win for individual reporting.

She has also taught at a number of universities, including Emory, Princeton, and Columbia.

William P. Stritzler is the managing director and owner of Smugglers’ Notch Resort in Vermont. Stritzler, a 1960 graduate of Middlebury College, began his career at Wells Fargo, where he was a vice president of the bank and president of the data processing subsidiary. He then joined AT&T, where he was a corporate vice president for new ventures and vice president of marketing for the company’s U.S. operations. He became Smugglers’ Notch Resort managing director in 1987 and purchased the company in 1996. Stritzler was named the 2016 Vermont Chamber of Commerce Citizen of the Year and has served on the boards of many local and statewide organizations in Vermont.

The Middlebury College Commencement ceremony will take place on the main quadrangle at 10 a.m. on Sunday, May 27. More than 5,000 family members and friends are expected to attend.