2024 Honorary Degree Recipients Share Wisdom They’ve Learned along their Journeys
By Bowdoin News
Bowdoin bestowed three honorary degrees at its 219th Commencement exercises and as is the College’s tradition, students, their families, and members of the community were invited to honorand presentations the day before.
The 2024 honorands include three-time Grammy award-winning bass- baritone opera singer Ryan Speedo Green, award-winning journalist and broadcaster Maria Hinojosa, and philanthropist and trustee emeritus David J. Roux.
Green told his story in conversation with trustee Andy Serwer ’81, in which he shared how the worst time of his life was while he was just twelve years old, how he viewed education as an escape that led him to music, which led him to opera, and how shattering preconceptions has become what he calls a theme of his life.
Ryan Speedo Green in conversation with Andy Serwer '81
Hinojosa, who was in conversation with the Bowdoin Orient’s 2023–2024 coeditors-in-chief Sam Pausman ’24 and Juliana Vandermark ’24, talked about defining herself as a journalist of conscience and how she feels a responsibility to remaining aware of what’s going on around us as a society and to being fair.
Maria Hinojosa in conversation with Sam Pausman ’24 and Juliana Vandermark ’24
Roux was the keynote speaker at Baccalaureate and through his talk, “Why Risk It?”, shared his wisdom with students, including counsel to take risks, act boldly, go to uncomfortable places, and, calling this his favorite, engage in mischief.
David Roux delivers the keynote address at Bowdoin's 2024 Baccalaureate ceremony.
