Lester Holt Named Rutgers' 2020 Commencement Speaker

NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ — NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt has been selected to give the spring 2020 commencement speech at Rutgers University's main campus in New Brunswick.

Rutgers graduation is May 17, and Holt will address Rutgers graduates and graduates from the Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences school. This will be Rutgers' 254th graduation ceremony, and it will be held at Rutgers' SHI Stadium in Piscataway.

Holt will also receive an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree. Rutgers usually pays its graduation speakers $35,000, but Holt asked that the money be donated in his name to the Committee to Protect Journalists, said a Rutgers spokeswoman.

Radio personality Angela “Angie” Martinez will deliver the keynote address at Rutgers-Newark. She is one of the most popular on-air personalities on radio stations Hot 97 and Power 105.1, as well as iHeartMedia.com. Martinez also will receive an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree.

President Barack Obama, while he was still in office, spoke at Rutgers' commencement in 2016, as has Springsteen rocker Steven Van Zandt. Super Bowl champs — and Rutgers grads! — Jason and Devin McCourty of the New England Patriots gave the 2019 Rutgers commencement address. Obama spoke for free.

Holt said he is “incredibly honored” for the opportunity to speak to the Rutgers class of 2020. In his address, he said he expects to talk about online communications in polarizing times and how they impact journalism.

“As so many of us assume the role of ‘citizen journalists’ via social media, we have to assume the responsibility that comes with it,” he said.

Read: Steven Van Zandt Tells Rutgers Grads To 'Embrace Your Jersey Roots' (May 2017)

Super Bowl Champs Jason, Devin McCourty Are Rutgers Grad Speakers (April 2019)

Holt started his television journalism career in 1981 as a reporter at WCBS-TV in New York and then moved to Los Angeles to report for KCBS-TV (then KNXT) before returning to WCBS in 1984. He was named NBC Nightly News anchor in June 2015. In addition, he has served as principal anchor of Dateline NBC since September 2011.

He recently earned the distinction of being the “most-trusted television news personality in America” in a Hollywood Reporter/Morning Consult poll.

Holt was selected to moderate the first presidential debate of 2016, which was the most-watched debate in American history. Holt also sat down with President Trump in May 2017, which stands as one of the most consequential interviews of his presidency, after Trump told Holt the firing of former FBI head James Comey was tied to the Russia investigation.

In January 2017, he traveled with President Obama on the commander-in-chief’s final trip aboard Air Force One for an in-depth interview in Chicago. Holt was recently a co-moderator for the first Democratic debate, kicking off the 2020 election cycle, which was also the most-watched Democratic debate ever.

Holt has received multiple Emmy awards and the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism award.

The Rutgers Board of Governors also voted to award Sandy J. Stewart, a highly respected biotech industry entrepreneur and scientist, with an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree at the ceremony. Stewart is also the former chair of the Rutgers Board of Trustees and Board of Governors.

Stewart spent nearly 12 years working for Ciba-Geigy/Novartis Biotechnology Center in Research Park, N.C., as head of the Immunology Group. During that time his group developed assays for multiple products, various diagnostics, invented a novel on-site diagnostic, and was part of the team that brought the first insect-resistant corn plant to the market.

He co-founded several biotechnology companies including Immunovation, Paradigm Genetics, Precion, and most recently Paradigm Botanicals. These companies spanned functional genomics, proteomics and immunology into drug development and diagnostics. In 2010, he joined Metabolon, founded by one of his cofounders at Paradigm Genetics, to advance technology that he developed in 1998. He was one of the first in the world to greatly advance the technology of biochemical profiling that led to the creation of a new field of science called Metabolomics.