Dr. Samuel O. Thier, president and CEO of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and president of Partners HealthCare System in Boston, will deliver the keynote address at the College's 227th Convocation ceremonies on Sept. 24 in Leede Arena.
In addition to welcoming the Class of 2000, Thier's speech will officially launch the College's year-long celebration of the bicentennial of Dartmouth Medical School.
In a telephone interview with The Dartmouth from his Boston office yesterday afternoon, Thier said he was "delighted and honored" that the College invited him to deliver the convocation address.
"I think we're at a time now in medicine where there are changes of a dramatic nature that occur maybe once every 50 or 100 years," Thier said. He said in his remarks this September, he hopes to address "the opportunities and risks for medical research in this time of great change."
Thier has held several prestigious positions in medicine, and is formerly a member of the DMS Board of Overseers. Before coming to Massachusetts General and Partners HealthCare, he was the president of Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass.
Convocation is the formal ritual that signifies the beginning of the academic year, and it is usually the first and only time that the President of the College addresses the faculty and students together.
The convocation speaker is chosen by the President in conjunction with the Board of Trustees, based upon a recommendation made by the Council on Honorary Degrees.
This year, the DMS Bicentennial Steering Committee -- a group that is helping coordinate and plan events to commemorate 200 years of medical education at the College -- also offered its input into the selection process.
College officials praised the selection of Thier as the convocation speaker.
"We were eager to have a speaker for medicine ... and what we were able to find in Dr. Thier is a person with a strong medical background who has also been the president of a university," College President James Freedman said.
"I think he's a wonderful choice for a speaker and I know that he'll speak to the values of liberal education," Freedman added.
Hali Wickner, DMS communications director, said DMS officials "were very pleased the College has chosen to honor medical education in this way by inviting Dr. Thier to the College."
Thier previously was president of the Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences.
He is also a former professor and chairman of the department of internal medicine at the Yale University School of Medicine.
Thier received his undergraduate education at Cornell University and earned his medical degree from the State University of New York at Syracuse in 1960.
He completed his postgraduate training at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Later, he served as a professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine before going to Yale.
This will be the second straight year the convocation address will be delivered by someone from the world of science.
Barry Sharpless '63, a chemistry professor at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif., gave last year's keynote address.
