President Anthony W. Marx will be speaking at his last commencement May 22 as he will become president of the New York Public Library.
Outdoing Amherst College president Anthony Marx shares a laugh with Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick in 2007.AMHERST - Paul Volcker, former chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank, is among the eight receiving honorary degrees during Amherst College’s 190th commencement exercises May 22 at the school.
Volcker, who was Federal Reserve chairman under presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, and other honorees will speak to graduates families at the college on May 21 and the series of conversations are open to the public.
Others speaking and receiving honorary degrees are Amherst alum John Abele, retired founder of the Boston Scientific Corporation; Adam Falk, president of Williams College; Andrew Kendall, an Amherst alum who is president of the nonprofit Trustees of Reservations in Massachusetts; Christine Lagarde, France’s Minister of Economy, Finance and Industry; Gail Kern Paster, outgoing director of the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC; Alice Waters, chef and owner of Chez Panisse, the Berkeley, Calif. eatery soon to be celebrating 40 years; and Kimmie Weeks, who while at Amherst College, founded the Youth Action International, a nonprofit that provides education, health care and economic empowerment to women and children in several postwar African nations. Weeks is from Liberia.
President Anthony W. Marx will speak during commencement. This will be Marx’s final commencement address as president as he is leaving June 30, after eight years, to become president of the New York Public Library.
There is no word yet on who might succeed him at the college.
Commencement begins at 10 a.m. May 22 in the quadrangle weather permitting. Otherwise it will be held in LeFrak Gymnasium.