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Frank McCourt Speaks at Commencement 2007
View Video from the Master's Graduate Ceremony.
5/10/2007
Baccalaureate and Honors Convocation ceremony held on Friday, May 11, 2007.
Several hundred men and women took a giant step into their futures at the Manhattanville College Bachelor of Science and Master’s Commencement on May 10, 2007. At the commencement ceremony, Master of Arts, Master of Science, Master of Arts in Teaching, and Master of Professional Studies degrees were conferred on 365 students, ranging in age from 22 to 64 years old and coming from seven U. S. states and six countries. Bachelor of Science degrees were awarded to 15 students who returned to college to complete their degrees.
Manhattanville College President Richard A. Berman congratulated the graduates, noting their strength and passion for their professions. “Manhattanville has reinforced your sense of purpose and your appreciation for the strength and breadth of community. You have felt the power and potential that comes from community, and you have accepted your special responsibility to use all of this to make the world a better place,” Berman stated.
During his remarks, Berman highlighted the individual accomplishments of many of the graduates such as a student who, while raising four children, earned an MAT and helped found a school in Connecticut. Other students, President Berman pointed out, had worked abroad in Asia and Latin America as part of their education.
Frank McCourt, former teacher and Pulitzer Prize winning author, was presented with an honorary Doctor of Laws degree. 
McCourt was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Angela’s Ashes, a poignant memoir of his poverty-stricken childhood in Ireland. He is also the author of Teacher Man, which chronicles his experience as a teacher in New York City. Manhattanville honored McCourt for his role as a teacher who inspired, motivated and gave hope to New York City high school students for almost thirty years.
McCourt delivered a lively and humorous commencement address to the graduates and their families. “The world needs teachers,” he began as he chronicled his own experiences as a high school teacher.
“My thirty-year career was an epic for me of learning and that’s the main thing. The kids thought I was teaching. I thought I was teaching. But mostly I was learning. It was an experience I couldn’t have had in any other profession.”
Michael Winerip, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who currently writes a parenting column for The New York Times was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree at the ceremony. Winerip edited the Times’ “On Education” column for four years; and, he has covered topics as challenging as race relations, the mental healthcare system and education policy during his career as a journalist.
Sister Ruth Dowd, RSCJ, Dean of the School of Graduate and Professional Studies awarded the Bachelor of Science, Master of Arts and Master of Science degrees to students from the following programs: Master of Arts in Writing, Master of Arts in Liberal Studies, Master of Science in International Management, Master of Science in Integrated Marketing Communications, Master of Science in Leadership and Strategic Management, and Master of Science in Organizational Management and Human Resource Development.
Shelley Wepner, Dean of the School of Education, presented the Master of Arts in Teaching and the Master of Professional Studies degrees to the graduates. Many of the School of Education graduates participated in the Jump Start program. The program is designed to enable career changers to gain their teaching certifications in less than two years.
After the degrees were conferred, Berman asked all of the graduates to turn and face their families and friends to thank them for their support. At the conclusion of the ceremony, he encouraged them “to represent Manhattanville and make the world a better place.”