Presented by Trustee J. Michael Chu ’80, P’12

President Hansen, I am honored to present Fareed Zakaria.

The founder of our college, Oren B. Cheney, is often storied as a clergyman and school-builder, but perhaps less well-known is Cheney’s experience as a newspaper journalist who used the printed word to speak truth to power while denouncing slavery before the Civil War.

Today, we pay tribute to this founding impulse by honoring Fareed Zakaria, a twenty-first century example of journalism’s power to bring forth truth in order to better our world. He is the editor of Newsweek International and author of two bestsellers: The Post-American World and The Future of Freedom. He hosts the weekly CNN news program Fareed Zakaria GPS, writes a column forThe Washington Post, and is the former managing editor of the journal Foreign Affairs.

Dr. Zakaria’s brilliance is seen in his ability to explain world affairs that are otherwise clouded by the dangerous trio of misunderstanding, confusion, and ignorance. In particular, he has guided his American readers and listeners toward a more intellectually nuanced understanding of the world’s dynamic realities. As he once said about his efforts to broaden his audience’s insular perspective, “If you want to understand what’s going on in the rest of the world, listen to what foreigners are saying about it.”

For endeavors that precisely exemplify the Journalist’s Creed and its belief in “journalism of humanity, of and for today’s world,” I present Fareed Zakaria for the degree Doctor of Humane Letters.

President’s conferral:

Fareed ZakariaFareed Zakaria, by elucidating the issues of our troubled era with talent and determination, you have provided a noble service to a democratic society that imagines a more just and peaceful world. Therefore by the authority vested in me by the Board of Trustees, I hereby confer upon you the degree Doctor of Humane Letters, with all the rights, privileges, and responsibilities which here and everywhere pertain to this degree.