McDaniel College will award more than 375 bachelor’s and 250 master’s degrees at the College’s 137th Commencement at 2 p.m. May 19 in Gill Center

Student awards include the Argonaut Award, which is presented annually to the graduating senior with the highest cumulative grade point average, and the Edith Farr Ridington Phi Beta Kappa Writing Award for the best honors paper.

At 9 a.m. on Commencement day, graduating McDaniel seniors who are members of the College’s Army ROTC program will be commissioned as second lieutenants into the U.S. Army. McDaniel has had an Army ROTC program since 1919.

McDaniel’s annual Baccalaureate Service will be held at 7:30 p.m. Friday, May 18, in Baker Memorial Chapel.

Speakers at the 137th Commencement include David Gergen, editor at-large for U.S. News and World Report, and Carla Hayden, Executive Director of the Enoch Pratt Free Library.

A recipient of one of two honorary degrees McDaniel will award this year, Gergen is a political contributor for several TV networks, professor of public service at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government and director of its Center for Public Leadership, and editor at-large for U.S. News and World Report. He has been an active participant in American national life for three decades.

He served as director of communications for President Reagan and held positions in the administrations of Presidents Nixon and Ford. In 1993, he served as counselor to President Clinton on both foreign policy and domestic affairs, then as special international adviser to the president and to Secretary of State Warren Christopher.

He describes the presidential struggles to exercise power in his book, “Eyewitness to Power: The Essence of Leadership Nixon to Clinton.”

Between 1984 and 1993, Gergen worked as a journalist and for more than two years, he was editor of U.S. News and World Report. During that period, he also teamed up with Mark Shields for political commentary every Friday night for five years on the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. 

Gergen is an honors graduate of Yale University and Harvard Law School.  He is a member of the D.C. Bar.  In addition, he served for over three years in the U.S. Navy. 

Also an honorary degree recipient, Hayden, executive director of Enoch Pratt Free Library since 1993, helped revitalize the library by updating its technology, building an annex for the central library, and improving outreach services with an after-school center that offers teens homework help as well as college and career counseling.

She is an active member of the American Library Association (ALA) and was elected its president for the 2003-04 term.  She also served as chair of the ALA’s Committee on Accreditation and Spectrum Initiative to recruit minorities to librarianship.

Hayden was named one of the Women of the Year by Ms. Magazine 2003, and Librarian of the Year by The Library Journal in 1995. In 1996, she was named one of Maryland’s Top 100 Women from Warfield’s Business Record, and again by The Daily Record in 2003.

She currently serves on several boards, including the Maryland African American Museum Corporation, the Baltimore City Historical Society, Goucher College, the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute and Library, the Maryland Historical Society, and the Maryland Public Broadcasting Company.

Prior to coming to Baltimore, Hayden was the first deputy commissioner and chief librarian of the Chicago Public Library, an assistant professor in the School of Library and Information Science of the University of Pittsburgh, and library service coordinator at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. 

Among her many honors, she is the recipient of the Torch Bearer Award from the Coalition of 100 Black Women, the Andrew White Medal from Loyola College, the Barnard Medal of Distinction, and the President’s Medal from the Johns Hopkins University.

A graduate of Roosevelt University, Hayden earned her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the Graduate Library School of the University of Chicago.