Drew's 2017 Commencement Features Two Speakers

Madison, N.J. – Drew University will celebrate more than 450 graduates and kick off its sesquicentennial year at its 2017 Commencement.

The Commencement Speaker is composer Julia Wolfe, winner of the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for music, and the Sesquicentennial Speaker is the Rev. Dr. William Barber II, a nationally known pastor, orator and civil rights advocate. Barber is also a 2003 alumnus of Drew Theological School, which opened in the fall of 1867.

Drew began as a seminary before adding undergraduate and graduate programs. Some 458 students from the three schools are expected to graduate on commencement day, which is May 13. During the ceremony—which is scheduled to take place behind Mead Hall beginning at 10:30 a.m.—the speakers will receive honorary degrees in humane letters.

Wolfe is this year’s Artist-in-Residence at Drew, co-teaching a course on documentary expression, lecturing and presenting a performance by the Brooklyn-based ensemble that she co-founded, the Bang on a Can All-Stars.

Wolfe draws inspiration from folk, classical and rock genres, bringing a modern sensibility to each while simultaneously tearing down the walls between them. Her Pulitzer Prize-winning oratorio, “Anthracite Fields,” drew upon oral histories, interviews and speeches to honor those who persevered and endured in the anthracite coal region of Pennsylvania.

Since 2009, Wolfe has taught at New York University’s Steinhardt School and last year she earned a “genius grant” from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Wolfe has a PhD from Princeton University, a master’s from Yale University and a bachelor’s from the University of Michigan, where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa.

Barber is pastor of Greenleaf Christian Church, president of the North Carolina NAACP and a past fellow at MIT’s Community Innovators Lab. In addition, he’s the founder of Moral Mondays—a multi-racial, multi-generational movement—and serves on the national board of the NAACP, chairing its Legislative Political Action Committee.

Barber is also an author and contributor to publications such as The Nation. As a leading voice on civil rights, he has been featured in The New York Times and on CNN.

Barber graduated cum laude from North Carolina Central University and earned a master of divinity from Duke University and a PhD from Drew Theological School.

For more on Drew’s 2017 Commencement, click here.

About Drew University

Drew University, a Phi Beta Kappa liberal arts university, includes the College of Liberal Arts, the Drew Theological School and the Caspersen School of Graduate Studies. Drew is located on a beautiful, wooded, 186-acre campus in Madison, New Jersey, a thriving small town close to New York City. It has a total enrollment of more than 2,000 students and has 145 full-time faculty members, 94% of whom hold the terminal degree in their field. The Theological and Caspersen Schools offer MA and PhD degrees and the College confers BA degrees in 30 disciplines.

Drew is dedicated to exceptional faculty mentorship, a commitment to connecting the campus with the community and a focus on experiential learning. Particularly noteworthy opportunities for undergraduates include the the Charles A. Dana Research Institute for Scientists Emeriti (RISE), home of 2015 Nobel Prize Winner for Medicine and Drew Fellow William Campbell, the Drew Summer Science Institute, the Center for Civic Engagement, six semesters in New York City (Wall Street, United Nations, Contemporary Art, Communications and Media, Social Entrepreneurship and Theatre) and several international semester programs. The University also houses the Center for Civic Engagement, the Drew Summer Science Institute, the Center on Religion, Culture & Conflict, the Center for Holocaust/Genocide Study and The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, an independent professional theater, as well as the United Methodist Archives and History Center and one of the country’s leading concentrations of materials on Willa Cather.