University Announces Sen. Murphy, Alumni to Receive Honorary Degrees at Commencement In May

President Michael Roth ’78 announced the three honorary degree recipients for the 194th Commencement Ceremony this May in a campus-wide email sent on Monday, March 23.

On Sunday, May 24, Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn) will deliver the commencement address to graduates and their guests and receive an honorary degree. Dr. David M. Carlisle ’76 and Karen Freedman ’75, P’05 will also be receiving honorary degrees at the ceremony. 

The University awards honorary degrees to those who have achieved special distinction in their respective fields, with the degrees themselves being awarded during the commencement ceremony at the end of the academic year. 

The University’s commencement ceremonies have been no stranger to influential guests. Past commencement speakers have included Oprah Winfrey in 1998, Barack Obama in 2008, and Lin Manuel Miranda ’02 in 2015. Murphy will join this esteemed group when he addresses the community on Andrus Field. 

In explaining the selection, Roth emphasized Murphy’s career advocating for Connecticut families of all backgrounds.

“Believing that working and middle-class families have been left behind, used, and exploited for too long, Murphy has dedicated his career to restoring power to working people,” Roth wrote in his message to the University. 

Murphy, who grew up in Wethersfield, Conn., has enjoyed a tenured political career representing the Nutmeg State. Serving in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2007 to 2013, he left the position in 2013 to become the youngest senator in the 113th Congress. His policies have focused on expanding affordable education and healthcare and promoting American manufacturing and public services.

Murphy has been among the more outspoken senators to oppose the Trump administration, his most recent dissent seen in his forcing a vote in the U.S. Senate on a measure that would de-escalate the war in Iran. 

“The authoritarian takeover isn’t coming,” Murphy said on the Senate floor last October. “It’s here. We’re in the middle of it. But it is not too late for everybody to see it and for us to stop it.”

Seniors are looking forward to hearing from Murphy, especially in this political moment.

“I was excited to hear that Senator Murphy would be our commencement speaker,” Katherine LoCascio ’26, co-chair of the Government Majors Committee, wrote in an email to The Argus. “Speaking to a politically engaged campus at a time when politics seems to directly shape what our lives will look like after graduation, I am curious whether he will address current issues, the war in Iran, the partial government shutdown, and immigration, or if he will set aside his gritty, ready-for-battle rhetoric in favor of a more positive, perhaps even optimistic, vision of life after graduation.”

Carlisle’s time at the University studying chemistry was the beginning of an expansive career in medicine that took him to Brown University for his M.D. and the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health for his M.P.H. and Ph.D. Since then, his clinical work has focused on advocacy for the underserved and larger policy work, including a tenure as the director of the State of California’s Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development from 2000–2011. He currently serves as the President and CEO of Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science in Los Angeles. 

Freedman has dedicated her career to representing children and young adults, after receiving her B.A. from the University and her J.D. from New York University School of Law, where she was a Root-Tilden-Kern Scholar and a Hays Civil Liberties Fellow. Since founding Lawyers for Children in 1984, her organization has represented over 100,000 clients. Last year, Freedman was honored with the New York Journal of Law’s Lifetime Achievement Award for her lifetime of advocacy and lasting impact on the profession. 

Roth affirmed the importance of the honorary degrees within the larger commencement ceremony. 

“Wesleyan is proud to bestow the highest honor the University has to offer upon these three remarkable leaders, who have dedicated their lives to pursuing the common good and standing up for the most vulnerable among us,” Roth wrote.

Anabel Goode can be reached at agoode@wesleyan.edu.

Miles Craven can be reached at mcraven@wesleyan.edu.