White House correspondent David Gregory to speak at Commencement

Chief White House correspondent for NBC News David Gregory will present the Commencement address at Kenyon's one hundred seventy-ninth graduation ceremony on Saturday, May 19. The program will begin at 10:30 a.m. on the lawn of Samuel Mather Hall. (The rainsite is the Kenyon Athletic Center.)

In addition to presenting diplomas to graduating seniors, the College will confer honorary degrees on Gregory and on author Robb Forman Dew. Honorary degrees will also be conferred upon retiring faculty members Reed S. Browning, the Roy T. Wortman Professor of History, and Professor of Economics Richard J. Trethewey, as well as former Dean of Students Donald J. Omahan and retiring Vice President for Library and Information Services Daniel B. Temple. The Baccalaureate speaker this year will be Professor of Anthropology David N. Suggs. The Baccalaureate service will take place on Friday, May 18, at 1:30 p.m.

As NBC's chief White House correspondent, David Gregory traveled with George W. Bush throughout the 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns. He has accompanied the president on all of his major foreign trips, and he was the only network correspondent to tour Ground Zero with the chief executive.

Gregory earned a bachelor's degree in international studies from American University, where he now serves on the advisory council to the dean of the School of International Service.

Robb Forman Dew is the author of the novel Dale Loves Sophie to Death, for which she won the National Book Award (then known as the American Book Award) for a first novel. Her other novels are The Time of Her Life, Fortunate Lives, The Evidence Against Her, and its sequel, The Truth of the Matter, which was published in 2005. Her nonfiction work includes a memoir, The Family Heart, and A Southern Thanksgiving: Recipes and Musings for a Manageable Feast. Born in Mount Vernon, Ohio, Dew often draws upon small-town central-Ohio life and culture for the themes and settings of her fictional work.

Browning, retiring after forty years on the faculty, has served formerly as acting president and as provost, and is the author of five books exploring topics from European history to baseball. Trethewey retires after teaching a range of economics courses at Kenyon for thirty-eight years, emphasizing the connections between classroom theories and real-world events. Omahan held various administrative postions over the course of nineteen years, serving as dean for academic advising and, for a decade, as dean of students. Temple has been a library and information systems administrator at Kenyon for ten years, leading the effort to integrate traditional library functions with information services.