In an interview with The Dartmouth, Wiesel said that he plans to share what he has learned from his life at Sunday's ceremony by discussing "what one learns and what one does with one's learning."
In a world where he believes fanaticism now represents the biggest threat, Wiesel stressed the importance of education as the principal component in addressing the world's challenges.
"When fanaticism gains power, the world is in danger," he said.
Wiesel stressed the power of knowledge to sensitize students to their responsibility in facing the world's challenges.
"I believe that young people who are leaving Dartmouth are entering a world which needs them to be sensitive. Sensitive to other people's pain, to other people's fights, to other people's hopes," Wiesel said.
While Wiesel has received over 100 honorary degrees from institutions of higher education, he says that this degree from Dartmouth stands out among the rest.
"I've been to Dartmouth many times in the last 10 years or so," Wiesel said, referring to the lectures he has given and attended. "Over time I've developed a very good feeling about the teachers and their students and the atmosphere. It's one of the very best schools in the country, really."
When Wiesel was 15 years old, the Nazi regime deported him and his family from their home in Transylvania, now part of Romania, to Auschwitz and later to Buchenwald.
A survivor of the Holocaust, which took the lives of his parents and younger sister, Wiesel studied in Paris and became a journalist after the war. After eleven years of refusing to write about or discuss his experiences during the Holocaust, Wiesel was eventually persuaded to write about the episode and published his famous memoir, "Night," in 1958.
After moving to the United States and receiving citizenship in 1963, Wiesel has become one of the country's most prominent humanitarians. In 1978, Wiesel was appointed by President Jimmy Carter as chairman of the President's Commission on the Holocaust, and he later founded the United States Holocaust Memorial Council.
In addition to the Nobel Peace Prize, Wiesel has been awarded the U.S. Congressional Gold Medal, the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Medal of Liberty Award.
Wiesel, who is currently a religion and philosophy professor at Boston University, has been an outspoken supporter of Israel and an advocate for many other oppressed peoples including the Desaparecidos of Argentina, Cambodian refugees, victims of war in the former Yugoslavia and victims of apartheid in South Africa.
Soon after he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986, Wiesel and his wife Marion established The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity with the stated goal of fighting indifference, intolerance and injustice.
Among the youth-focused programs that the foundation runs domestically and internationally are an ethics essay contest, a number of international conferences for youth in conflict-ridden countries and gatherings of Nobel Laureates. In addition, the foundation runs two centers in Israel that enroll over 1,000 Ethiopian Jewish children in order to help them excel in Israeli society.
Wiesel says he is looking forward to the weekend's events and to receiving an honorary degree from the College. Wiesel, who will be arriving on campus on Saturday evening and leaving soon after Commencement ceremonies on Sunday, urged graduates to give back to the world for what Dartmouth has given them.
"They have received at Dartmouth many things, many blessings. Now they must share them," he said.
