2023 Graduation Ceremonies Schedule for Penn Arts & Sciences

Apr 25, 2023

College of Arts & Sciences Graduation Ceremony

Sunday, May 14, 2023
6:30 p.m.
Franklin Field, 33rd and South Streets

Joshua Bennett, C’10, award-winning poet, spoken word artist, and author of five books, and Hoang Le, C’23, W’23, will speak.

Bennett’s books of poetry, criticism, and narrative nonfiction include the just-published Spoken Word: A Cultural History; The Study of Human Life, which was long-listed for the Griffin Poetry Prize and is currently being adapted for television in collaboration with Warner Brothers Studios; and The Sobbing School, winner of the National Poetry Series and a finalist for an NAACP Image Award. Bennett has received fellowships and awards from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. This summer, he will join the faculty of MIT as a professor of literature and Distinguished Chair of the Humanities.

Hoang Le, from Davie, Florida, entered Penn as a QuestBridge Scholar and enrolled in the Life Sciences and Management program, a joint program between the College and the Wharton School. He is majoring in biology in the College and in economics at Wharton. Le has served as editor-in-chief of Synapse, an undergraduate medical journal; created and developed the LSM Pipeline Program in partnership with the Netter Center to work with West Philly high schoolers; was a U.N. Millennium Fellow; and won the Y-Prize competition at Penn for an idea using novel steerable needle technology.

Additional information here.

Graduate Division Graduation Ceremony

Friday, May 12, 2023
3 p.m.
Zellerbach Theatre, Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, 3680 Walnut Street

Herman Beavers, Julie Beren Platt and Marc E. Platt President’s Distinguished Professor of English and Africana Studies; Kimberly Cárdenas, GR'23 Political Science; Nakul Deshpande, GR'22GR’22, Earth and Environmental Science; and Sarah Xia Yu, GR'22GR’22, History, will speak.

Beavers is a distinguished poet and a widely published scholar of 20th-century American and African American literature, especially the novels of Toni Morrison, the traditions of jazz and jazz writing, and the work of 20th-century Southern writers. He has received a School of Arts & Sciences Dean’s Award for Mentoring Undergraduate Research, and he has served in many roles at Penn, including as the current faculty director of Civic House and the Civic Scholars Program. His teaching includes an Arts-Based Community Service course, August Wilson and Beyond, which brings Penn students together with West Philadelphia residents to read August Wilson’s 20th Century Cycle.

Additional information here.

College of Liberal & Professional Studies Graduation Ceremony

Sunday, May 14, 2022
4 p.m.
Zellerbach Theatre, Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, 3680 Walnut Street

Brighid Dwyer, the inaugural Vice Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Penn Arts and Sciences, will speak. Since joining Penn in 2021, Dwyer has provided leadership in pursuit of the School’s core commitments to achieving and maintaining excellence through diversity. She has 20 years of experience as a practitioner, scholar, and professor addressing issues of equity in higher education. She has published numerous articles and book chapters on the topics of diversity, equity, and inclusion, intergroup dialogue, leadership, and organizational culture and identity at minority-serving institutions.

Additional Information here.