TUFTS UNIVERSITY 142ND COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES MEDFORD, MASSACHUSETTS MAY 1 7, 1998 ORDER OF EVENTS Musical Prelude Tufts University Wind Ensemble John McCann, Director of Band Processional Presenter Peter L.D. Reid Associate Professor of Classics Alumni Marshal Regina Strazzulla Rockefeller Class of 1973 Commencement Rocco J. Carza Marshal Invocation The Reverend Scotty McLennan University Chaplain National Anthem Ezinna Anosike Class of 1998 Welcome John DiBiaggio, President ofthe University Conferring of John DiBiaggio, President Honorary Degrees Recipients of Helen Frankenthaler, Doctor ofFine Arts Honorary Degrees Bernard Warren Harleston, Doctor ofHumane Letters Jerome P. Kassirer, Doctor ofScience Djibril Tamsir Niane, Doctor ofHumane Letters Garry Trudeau, Doctor ofHumane Letters 2 The Commencement Garry Trudeau Address Recipients of Faculty Joseph J. Byrne, School ofMedicine Emeritus/a Helen Cartwright, College of Liberal Arts and Jackson College Certificates H. Chris Doku, School ofDental Medicine Mary Ella Fei nlei b, College ofliberal Arts and Jackson College Martin H. Flax, School ofMedicine Howard Hunter, College ofLiberal Arts and Jackson College Arpad von Lazar, Fletcher School ofLaw and Diplomacy Hywel Madoc-Jones, School ofMedicine Nancy S. Milburn, College ofLiberal Arts and Jackson College James R. Morehead, School ofMedicine William F. Reynolds, College ofLiberal Arts and Jackson College Helen D. Smith, College ofLiberal Arts and Jackson College Conferring of John DiBiaggio, President Degrees in Course Nathan Gantcher, Chairman, Board of Trustees Sol Gittleman, Senior Vice President and Provost Benediction Associate Chaplains Rabbi Jeffrey Summit Father John Sawicki After the Benediction there will be a brief interlude in the ceremony during which the faculties and the students ofthe Fletcher School of law and Diplomacy, the School ofMedicine, the School ofDental Medicine, the School ofNutrition Science and Policy, the Sack/er School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences, and the School of Veterinary Medicine and their guests will move to other sites for the second por­ tion oftheir Commencement exercises. All others please remain seated. 3 DEAR ALMA MATER We con beside thy knee, Speed on thy sunlit way, Dear Alma Mater, Dear Alma Mater. Earth's book of mystery, We vow new faith today, Dear Alma Mater. Dear Alma Mater! We track the storied past, May glory light thy name, Dear Alma Mater, Dear Alma Mater, Over plains of learning vast, All thy children sing thy fame, Dear Alma Mater, with three. Dear Alma Mater, for aye! TUFTONIA ' S DAY by Elliot Wright Hayes, A'l6 Steady and true, rush along, Brown and Blue. Raise a mighty score roday. Fearless tear down the field and never yield! Brown and Blue, Brown and Blue for aye! Hammer them hard, boys, and break through their guard. That is old Tuftonia's way. And our glorious banner once again will wave o'er Tuftonia's Day. T-U-F-T-S, T-U-F-T-S, Hurrah! Hurrah! for dear old Brown and Blue! Refrain: Up on the Hill tonight all will be gay. Victorious in the fight, we'll raise the standard ofdear old Tufts to glory! Pile up a mighty score. It's bound to soar. Now one goal more! Nothing can stop us; it's Tuftonia's Day. Push it right through, boys, we're rooting for you! Now then smash their guard once more. See, they are losing fast, their line can't last! Brown and Blue, boys, forevermore. Right through the hole, lads, and make it a goal in the good old fashioned way. And we'll all turn out with a lusty shout to honor Tuftonia's Day. T-U-F-T-S, T-U-F-T-S, Hurrah! Hurrah! for dear old Brown and Blue! Refrain: 4 RECIPIENTS 0 F HONORARY DEGREES HELEN FRANKENTHALER is a major figure in the world of modern arc, one whose vision and innovation has altered the course of painting. Her name is firmly inscribed in art history books, and a list of exhibitions and awards as well as the museums that own her paintings fill many pages. For someone whose daring paved the way for a new style of painting, her view of herself is surprisingly prosaic. She once told The New York Times Magazine, "My life is square and bour­ geois. 1 like calm and continuity. 1 think as a person I'm very controlling, and I'm afraid of big risks. I'm not a skier or a mountain climber or a motorcyclist. And I'm not a safari girl-I never want to go on a safari. My safaris are all on the studio floor. That's where I take my danger." As a young artist, the "danger" on her studio floor began as a risky venture to a place no one else had ever traveled. She came of age during the height of Abstract Expressionism, when Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock were exciting the art world with their intense, frenetic styles. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Pollock was dripping paint onto canvas, creating swirls and lines of thick pigment. In the early 1950s, Frankenthaler took this non-brush technique in a different direction. She thinned paint to the consistency of a wash and poured it directly onto unprimed canvas, allowing the paint to soak in. Writer Deborah Solomon has described Frankenthaler's work as "soft, unfolding bursts of color which can make us feel we're being welcomed into a serene place ... Her vibrant abstrac­ tions, in which paint is soaked into the canvas like ink into a paper napkin, have a sensuous liq­ uidity." Others have described her work as "diaphanous," "fluid," or providing a "liquid-like effect reminiscent of water colors." Art critic Robert C. Morgan said, "What made Frankenthaler's vision unique was the free­ dom to draw with color, to move beyond the prescriptions of edge and format as the sole deter­ minants of painterly content and to allow the gestural fl.ow of the paint to intervene and thus to alter the way a painting could be seen." Frankenthaler herself has said that despite their feeling of improvisation, her paintings are carefully planned. "Color doesn't work unless it works in space," she said. "Color alone is just decoration-you might as well be making a shower curtain." The work "Mountains and Sea," painted when Frankenthaler was only 23, is considered a turning point in art, the painting that makes the connection between Abstract Expressionism and the style called Color Field that emerged in the 1950s and 1960s. "Mountains and Sea" excited and inspired such artists as Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland, who have acknowledged Frankenthaler's innovation. Frankenthaler was born on Dec. 12, 1928. Her father, Alfred Frankenthaler, was a judge in the New York State Supreme Court, and her mother, Martha Lowenstein Frankenthaler, was born in Germany. She was the youngest of three daughters and grew up in Manhattan, enjoying a privileged existence attending private schools and taking advantage of New York's museums and galleries. At the Dalton School, she studied with Mexican painter Rufino Tamayo, who encouraged her to attend Bennington College and study art. There she studied with the cubist painter Paul 5 Feeley. She was also a student at the Art Student League in New York and studied privately with Hans Hofmann. After graduating from Bennington, she returned to New York City, where she met the influential art critic Clement Greenberg by inviting him to an art show she organized to benefit her college. Greenberg introduced her to major artists of the day and took her to exhibitions and art shows. Through Greenberg she met de Kooning, Franz Kline, and Pollock. She was married to painter Robert Motherwell from 1958 to 1971, and married Stephen DuBrul in 1994. Frankenthaler's work has been presented at major museums and exhibitions around the world. She was one of four artists chosen to represent the United Scates at the 1966 Venice Biennial. She has enjoyed retrospectives in major museums, including the Whitney Museum of American Arc in 1969, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 1985, the Museum of Modern Art in 1989 and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., in 1993. Since 1951, her work has appeared in more than 150 one-woman shows and in several hundred group exhibitions. Among her many awards are first prize at the Biennale in Paris in 1959, Extraordinary Women of Achievement Award from the National Conference of Christians and Jews in 1978 and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the College of Art Association in 1994. She has caught and lectured at a number of colleges and universities, including Bennington, Yale, Princeton, Hunter College, Harvard, Brandeis, the Santa Fe Institute of Fine Arts, and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Her work is in major, permanent collections around the world. Among the museums own­ ing her paintings are the Boston Museum of Fine Arcs, rhe Brooklyn Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum as well as museums in London, Australia, Ireland, Israel, and Japan. A recent exhibition of her work at rhe Guggenheim in New York, called "After Mountains and Sea: Frankenthaler 1956-59," will go on display at the Guggenheim in Bilbao, Spain, from June to September and move to rhe Guggenheim in Berlin in October. Another current exhibit, "Frankenthaler: The Darker Palette," is currently at the Savannah College of Art and Design. Ir will move to the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D .C., on July 1 and to the Princeton Art Museum in 1999. Frankenthaler will receive an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree. As an educator for more than four decades, BERNARD HARLESTON has often been on the front lines, from choosing to run a black university during a critical time in the civil rights movement, to overseeing an urban institution where challenges to the right to free speech made daily headlines.