December 1, 1997

Daniel Patrick Moynihan to Speak at Middlebury
College’s Commencement ‘98: Middlebury to Award Honorary
Degrees to Moynihan and Eight Others

U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York
will speak at Middlebury College’s Commencement ‘98 next May,
and receive an honorary Doctor of Laws degree. Moynihan’s tie
to Middlebury dates back to World War II, when he was a member
of the U.S. Navy’s V-12 unit stationed at the College. By the
end of the war, over 1,200 Navy men from 20 different states had
studied at Middlebury as part of the preliminary portion of their
officer training program.

The College also will present honorary degrees to
seven other distinguished individuals, including Jamaica Kincaid,
a resident of Bennington, Vt., who will receive an honorary Doctor
of Letters degree. An author and former staff writer for “The
New Yorker,” Kincaid won the Morton Daween Zabel Award of
the American Academy and was nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Award.
Her latest book is “The Autobiography of My Mother.”

Another Vermont resident, Crea Lintilhac of the Lintilhac
Foundation in Shelburne, Vt., will receive an honorary Doctor
of Science degree. The foundation, which funds environmental and
social projects in Vermont, has supported the work of several
Middlebury professors, including Patricia Manley of the geology
department and her studies of Lake Champlain, and Steve Trombulak
of the biology department and his monitoring of amphibian populations
on Mount Mansfield.

The College will award Millard Dean Fuller, the founder
of Habitat for Humanity, an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters
degree.

James Ibbotson, a musician, composer, member of the
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and parent of a 1998 graduate, will receive
an honorary Doctor of Arts degree.

Anne Lincoln Bryant, executive director of the National
School Boards Association and former executive director of the
American Association of University Women, will receive an honorary
Doctor of Education degree.

The College will
award Alice F. Emerson, senior fellow at The Andrew W. Mellon
Foundation, an honorary Doctor of Letters degree. Dr. Emerson’s
vision of technology-enhanced language learning has led her to
support Middlebury as the leader of a nationwide collaborative
of 62 liberal arts colleges that seek to improve language instruction
through the use of technology.

Roch Thibodeau, a resident of Burlington,
Vt., who died earlier this year, was a leader of the Alliance
for the Mentally Ill of Vermont. The College will award him an
honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree posthumously.

Middlebury College Dean of Admissions
Emeritus Fred F. Neuberger, who worked at the College from 1955
to 1991, will receive an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree.