Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author David Halberstam will address the Class of 1996 at the College's 226th Commencement exercises on June 9. Halberstam will also receive an honorary doctor of letters degree.
The College announced the other honorary degree recipients will be sociologist and author Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Mamet, educator Deborah Meier, former Dartmouth football coach Bob Blackman, Nobel Prize-winning molecular biologist Sidney Altman and conservationist George Woodwell '50.
College President James Freedman, a personal friend of Halberstam, said he "is a wonderful person and an excellent choice."
"I think he will be a very effective speaker," Freedman continued. "He is a prominent journalist and a person of distinction. He will have a very powerful message to bring to students."
Halberstam was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting in 1964 for his coverage of the Vietnam war, according to a College News Service press release.
He reported for The New York Times from 1960 to 1967 and was contributing editor for Harper's magazine from 1967 to 1971, according to the release.
Halberstam is the author of more than a dozen books including "The Best and the Brightest," "The Powers That Be," "The Reckoning," "The Summer of '49," "The Fifties and October 1964," according to the release.
Halberstam has received the George Polk Memorial Award, the Louis Lyons Award and the Overseas Press Club Award. He was also honored with the Page One Award for his reporting in the Congo during the 1960s, the release stated.
"From everything I heard he should be an excellent speaker," Senior Class President Brendan Doherty '96 said. "While he might not have the name recognition some people are looking for, he seems to be a well-qualified and good speaker."
Freedman said selecting an appropriate speaker after President Bill Clinton's Commencement address last year was a challenge.
"When you have the privilege of having had the President of the United States speak, it is obviously very hard to find someone appropriate for the next year," he said.
The Board of Trustees selects Commencement speakers , Doherty said. Nominations are submitted to the Trustees by the Council on Honorary Degrees, which Freedman heads and also includes faculty members and the senior class president.
Altman, who will be awarded an honorary doctor of science degree, received the 1989 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his discoveries in the field of genetic research, Freedman said.
Altman became a faculty member at Yale University in 1971, was a Damon Runyon Cancer Research Fellow at Harvard and a visiting research fellow at Cambridge University in the laboratory of Nobel Prize winner Francis H.C. Crick. He was dean of Yale from 1985 to 1989 and a Montgomery Fellow at the College in 1992, the release stated.
Famed football coach Blackman, who coached Big Green football for 16 years, will receive an honorary doctor of laws degree.
Freedman said the College selected Blackman because the fall of 1995 marked the 25th anniversary of his most outstanding team -- the last Ivy League football team to be ranked in the top 15.
"There was a wonderful sense that this was a wonderful year" for Blackman, Freedman said.
Harvard sociologist Lawrence-Lightfoot will receive an honorary doctor of letters degree.
She is the author of "Worlds Apart: Relationships Between Families and Schools," "Beyond Bias: Perspectives on Classrooms" and "The Good High School: Portraits of Character." Lawrence-Lightfoot has received more than a dozen honorary degrees, and in 1993 the Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot Chair at Swarthmore College was named in her honor, according to the press release.
Mamet, an award-winning screenwriter and playwright, will receive an honorary doctor of letters degree.
He wrote more than 20 plays, including "American Buffalo," "Three Water Engine" and "Glengarry Glen Ross," which received the Pulitzer Prize for drama. Mamet's screenplay credits include "The Postman Always Rings Twice," "The Verdict," "The Untouchables" and "Hoffa," the release stated.
Meier, who works with disadvantaged children in New York City, will be awarded an honorary doctor of letters degree.
Meier "is an outstanding educator working with students in the inner city of New York," Freedman said. "She earned national recognition for the effectiveness of her methods."
She founded three elementary schools and a high school and was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship for her work in 1987.
Woodwell, a founding trustee of the Environmental Defense Fund, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the World Resources Institute, will receive an honorary doctor of science degree. He is also founder and president of the Woods Hole Research Center in Massachusetts, Freedman said.
Woodwell is "a very distinguished scientist," Freedman said. "He is someone the College is very proud of."
