Michael Beschloss will deliver the keynote address for Penn’s 270th Commencement ceremony, scheduled for May 18 at Franklin Field. An award-winning presidential historian, author, and scholar, Beschloss is an NBC News and PBS contributor whose most recent book, Presidents of War: The Epic Story, from 1807 to Modern Times, was a New York Times bestseller. He’s written other books on several American presidents—and the crucial decisions they’ve made—including Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon Johnson.
In a statement, Penn President J. Larry Jameson called Beschloss “one of our nation’s most important historians,” adding that “as we celebrate our country’s 250th anniversary of independence, we look forward to his perspective and guidance for the centuries ahead.”
At the Commencement ceremony, Beschloss will receive an honorary degree, along with economist and Harvard professor Claudia Goldin (who served on Penn’s faculty from 1979 to 1990), chemist Carolyn Bertozzi, harpist Ann Hobson Pilot, and landscape architect James Corner GFA’86 GLA’86, professor emeritus of landscape architecture and urbanism at Penn’s Weitzman School of Design who’s best known for designing New York City’s High Line [“The Transformer” Nov|Dec 2012].
