Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author to Deliver Commencement Address

 

Novelist and essayist Marilynne Robinson will receive an honorary degree from the College of the Holy Cross and address this year’s graduates during the College’s Commencement ceremonies on Friday, May 27 at 10:30 a.m. on the campus. 

The author of three highly acclaimed novels, Robinson has distinguished herself as one of the nation’s most important and influential writers.  Interested in the search for meaning and value in life, her work explores themes of faith, forgiveness, hope, and relationships. 

Since the publication of her first novel, Housekeeping, in 1980, which earned her the PEN/Ernest Hemingway Award for First Fiction, the Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Award from the Academy of American Arts and Letters, and a Pulitzer Prize nomination, Robinson has been honored with many of the publishing industry’s most prestigious awards.  Her novel Gilead, the story of an Iowa preacher, won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for fiction and the 2004 National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction. Her most recent novel, Home, a companion to Gilead, won the 2008 L.A. Times Book Prize for fiction and the 2009 Orange Prize for fiction. 

In 1990, Robinson received a Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Writer’s Award, and in 1998, she earned the Mildred and Harold Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts. 

Robinson is also the author of three books of nonfiction, The Death of Adam, Absence of Mind, and Mother Country, an exposé of the environmental damage caused by a nuclear reprocessing plant that was a finalist for the 1989 National Book Award. 

A faculty member at the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Robinson has also taught at the University of Kent in England, the University of Massachusetts and at Amherst College. 

The College will also bestow two other honorary degrees to the following individuals at Commencement: 

Rev. Francis X. Clooney, S.J., of Harvard Divinity School Parkman Professor of Divinity and Professor of Comparative Theology Director of the Center for the Study of World Religions 

A leading scholar in the developing field of comparative theology, Fr. Clooney has opened doors to Western understanding of the Sanskrit and Tamil traditions of Hindu India through his writings.  He has also studied the Jesuit missionary tradition of scholarship, particularly in India, and the importance of interfaith dialogue in the contemporary world.  Clooney was the first president of the International Society for Hindu-Christian Studies, and served as coordinator for interreligious dialogue for the Society of Jesus in the U.S. He is the author of numerous articles and books, including a forthcoming introductory volume on comparative theology, Comparative Theology: Deep Learning Across Religious Borders (Wiley-Blackwell).  A member of the Harvard Divinity School faculty since 2005, Clooney previously taught at Boston College.  He earned his Ph.D. in South Asian Languages and Civilizations from the University of Chicago, his M. Div. from Weston School of Theology and his B.A. from Fordham University. 

Henry I. Smith '58, Professor of Electrical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 

A member of the Holy Cross Class of 1958, Smith has been called the "father of x-ray lithography."  His groundbreaking work in the fields of nanoscale science and engineering and the applications of nanostructures have been widely recognized.  Smith holds over 40 U.S. patents and has published over 400 articles, contributing to the advancement of multiple scientific fields, from the medical industry to computer science to aerospace.  He is a fellow of both the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering.  A physics major at Holy Cross, he completed his graduate studies at Boston College.  From 1960-63 he served as an officer in the U.S. Air Force before returning to Boston College to complete his Ph.D. and serve as assistant professor of physics.  From 1968-80, he was at MIT Lincoln Laboratory where he worked on surface-acoustic-wave devices and pioneered the development of techniques for fabricating nanometer structures, before pursuing full-time teaching and research at MIT. Smith also serves as president and CEO of LumArray, a lithography company with a state-of-the-art-patented technology which he developed with colleagues at MIT. 

Related Information: Commencement website