Jim Lehrer, the host of PBS's "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer," will receive a Doctor of Humane Letters. In addition to his news program on PBS, Lehrer has served as a moderator for ten presidential debates in the last five presidential elections. He is a published author and a playwright and in 1999 he received the National Humanities Medal.
Joan Ganz Cooney's television credits are ample. They include The Electric Company, 3-2-1 Contact, Square One TV, Ghostwriter, CRO, Big Bag, Dragon Tales and Sagwa and the Chinese Siamese Cat, but she is best known for co-founding the Children's Television Workshop through which she helped create the series Sesame Street.
Ganz first worked as a reporter and a publicist for NBC and a correspondent for CBS before changing her focus to children's television programs.
An inductee into two halls of fame -- The Television Academy Hall of Fame and The National Women's Hall of Fame -- Cooney has also been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the National Endowment for the Humanities Award and a Daytime Emmy Lifetime Achievement Award. Cooney will be awarded a Doctor of Arts at the Commencement ceremony.
U.S. Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) will also receive an honorary degree at the ceremony. Though Gregg did not graduate from Dartmouth, two of his children have received degrees from the College and his third, Joshua Gregg '06 will graduate Sunday.
A partner in the law firm Sullivan, Gregg and Horton, Gregg is currently serving his third term as a U.S senator. Prior to that, he was a governor of the state of New Hampshire and representative to the United States Congress for New Hampshire's Second District. In the Senate, Gregg is the chairman of the Budget Committee and the Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security. Gregg will receive a Doctor of Laws.
Robert Barry '56 will also receive a Doctor of Laws at the ceremony on Sunday. After graduating from Dartmouth, Barry studied European History at Columbia University and then Soviet and Eastern European Affairs at Oxford University. Throughout his distinguished career, Barry has served as an ambassador to Bulgaria and Indonesia. He has worked in Washington, D.C. as Deputy Director of Soviet Affairs, Director of UN Political Affairs, and Deputy Assistant Secretary for UN Affairs and later European Affairs.
In 1985, Barry won Senate confirmation to become the head United States delegate to the Stockholm Conference focusing on nuclear disarmament.
Chiharu Igaya '57, who will receive a Doctor of Humane Letters degree is currently the Vice President of the International Olympic Committee. He is also an Olympic silver and bronze medalist skier; he received the silver medal in 1956 before he graduated from Dartmouth. Inducted into the U.S. Ski Hall of Fame in 1972, Igaya has since worked as the Chairman of AIG K.K., an insurance and financial services company.
In 1992, Mae Jemison, who will receive a Doctor of Science, became the first woman of color to venture into outer space. Before her journey into the vast unknown, Jemison earned a Bachelor of Science from Stanford University and a doctorate in medicine at Cornell University Medical College.
A former Peace Corps medical officer, Jemison left NASA in 1993 and founded a research and consulting firm that has recently worked on creating a solar-powered telecommunications network to help form a health care infrastructure in West Africa.
Pulitzer Prize winning poet Maxine Kumin will receive a Doctor of Letters. During her career, Kumin has published 15 books of poetry. In 1972, her book "Up Country: Poems of New England" earned her the Pulitzer prize. She has also served as New Hampshire's poet laureate.
Elie Wiesel, who will deliver the commencement speech to graduates, will be awarded an honorary doctor of Humane Letters. In 1986, the Holocaust survivor and humanitarian was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.