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Commencement 2015

Bob Costas, Richard Thompson among 5 to be awarded honorary degrees at 161st Syracuse University commencement

Five members of the Syracuse University community will receive honorary degrees at this year’s commencement ceremony on May 10.

Bob Costas, Charlotte Holstein, Mary Karr, Sonia Nieto and Richard Thompson will be the recipients for their impact on the university and the world, SU announced Thursday. The 161st commencement ceremony is set to take place on May 10 in the Carrier Dome.

Costas, a sports broadcaster and a 1974 SU alumnus, was also honored by SU with the George Arents Award — SU’s highest alumni honor — for excellence in sports broadcasting in 2001. In addition, Costas received the Newhouse Sports Media Center’s first ever Marty Glickman Award for Leadership in Sports Media in 2013.

Holstein, founder executive director of F.O.C.U.S. Greater Syracuse, has been a longtime partner of continuing education at SU, especially through University College, according to the release. Holstein has also chaired the advisory boards for SU’s School of Social Work and the College for Human Development, according to an SU News release.

Karr, an award-winning poet and memoirist and the Jesse Truesdell Peck Professor of Literature at SU, will be delivering this year’s commencement address in addition to receiving an honorary degree. She was formerly a poetry columnist for the Washington Post and is the author of best-selling memoirs “The Liars’ Club” and “Cherry,” as well as best-seller “Lit,” the sequel to those two memoirs.



Nieto, a past lecturer for the Douglas P. Biklen Landscape of Urban Education Lectures Series at SU, is a leader in the field of multicultural and bilingual education. Nieto is currently professor emerita of language, literacy and culture at the University of Massachusetts, where she has been a member of the university’s School of Education faculty for 25 years, according to the release.

Thompson, a 1967 SU alumnus and chairman of the SU Board of Trustees since 2011, also serves on the external advisory board of SU’s Institute for Veterans and Military Families and SU’s Washington, D.C. advisory board. Thompson will step down from his role as chairman of the Board of Trustees in May when his term ends.





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