Emmy- and Golden Globe–winning actress Jane Lynch was the speaker at Smith College’s 134th Commencement ceremony on Sunday, May 20, 2012.

Link to text of the speech

This year, renowned curator Thelma Golden ’87 celebrated her twenty-fifth reunion and gave the alumna keynote address at the Ivy Day celebration on May 19. Through her work with the Whitney Museum of American Art, and currently as director and chief curator for the Studio Museum in Harlem, Golden has used art as a way to challenge, examine and address culture. In her address, she told seniors to enjoy the “richness and complexity and joy” that life has to offer.

Shishona Jones, a member of the Class of 2012, delivered the student address at Smith College’s Ivy Day celebration on Saturday, May 19.

It’s dark, about 5:30 a.m. The air is frigid and icy, with a cutting breeze knifing off the water. Movement for a while is sluggish and achy. For more than 60 students, members of the Smith crew team, this is the best time of the day—up before dawn, out on the Connecticut River, watching the sunrise, breathing the cold, rowing in unison, all before breakfast. What is it about crew that gets under the skin of team members and becomes a primary part of their Smith lives? 

When Maggie Kurkoski ’12, working as a research assistant for Scott Bradbury, professor of classical languages and literatures, dug through the storage cabinets in the Caverno Room in Neilson Library, she came across a box, likely untouched in decades, filled with ancient Roman coins. Her curiosity piqued, she set to work analyzing, cataloguing and preparing the coins for display. Kurkoski’s exhibition, “Portable Rome: Exploring and Exhibiting Ancient Coins,” is the capstone project for her museums concentration.

Laura D'Andrea Tyson ’69 was the first woman to head the National Economic Council from 1993 to 1995, during the administration of President Bill Clinton. She is now the S.K. and Angela Chan Professor of Global Management at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, and is a member of President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. Tyson was also the first female dean of the London Business School from 2002 to 2006. She is an economic columnist for BusinessWeek magazine and writes regularly about domestic and international economic policy issues in the Washington Post, the New York Times, and other internationally syndicated newspapers and magazines.

In addition to being editor of the arts and literature quarterly, the Hudson Review, Paula Deitz '59 is a writer and cultural critic in the fields of art, architecture, design, and landscape design. She is a frequent contributor to the New York Times, Architectural Review, and Gardens Illustrated. She is the author of “Of Gardens: Selected Essays,” which is a collection of her writings on gardens from around the world, and their intellectual, historical, and aesthetic significance.