Northwestern University alumnus Seth Meyers, the host of NBC’s “Late Night” talk show and one of the nation’s best-known comedians, will deliver NU’s commencement address in June.
Meyers is one of five people who will receive honorary degrees at the university’s 158th commencement ceremony June 17.
The Northwestern School of Communication alumnus (’96) was the head writer for “Saturday Night Live” and anchor of the show’s wildly popular “Weekend Update” before becoming the host of “Late Night with Seth Meyers” in 2014.
The recipient of an Emmy Award and several Writers Guild Awards, he also is a writer and executive producer of “Late Night.” He was nominated for an Emmy 14 times and is one of the 2014 TIME 100, Time magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people in the world. Meyers began his improvisation comedy career as a member of the Mee-Ow troupe at Northwestern.
Besides Meyers, the others who will receive honorary degrees are Robert Alter, a University of California, Berkeley scholar who has revolutionized the field of Biblical studies; Richard Lifton, a Yale School of Medicine professor who pioneered the identification of gene mutations causing extreme forms of common disease; Sara S. McLanahan, a Princeton University professor whose scholarship focuses on fragile families and child well-being; and Ruth J. Simmons, a former president of Brown University who has provided path-breaking leadership and scholarship in higher education.
Holy Cow
Surely, North Western should be able to do a whole lot better than Seth Meyers.
Seth Meyers
Time magazine’s one of 100 top influential people in the world??? Seriously???? Right in there along with Kim & Kanye….holy cow! How unfitting for the NU commencement…NOT!
But that is what NU is about anymore
No matter how funny he or Steven Colbert are, is that what Commencement is about ? O.k. students and family are not there to hear serious talk about education and life or get meaningful advise. But is this not typical of what NU has become—a professional training school for music, journalism and speech. Oh, yes there are a number of students who are there to get a serious education in sciences, technology and liberal arts [minus the one-sided indoctrination by some professors but with a full exposure without fear of offending someone with "micro-aggression" or using a word the other students might not know. NU's reputation for this has fallen in the last few years and will hurt students looking for "serious jobs" and graduate school since employers can see what NU's emphasis has been. When was the last time NU had a serious graduation speaker ? U.Chicago requires it be a serious academic—President Clinton was not even able to give an address there..
Oh, please!
Hi Serious,
Two thoughts about your comment.
1. Were you to open your mind, you could learn from Northwestern's publicly available enrollment data that less that 15 percent of NU students are enrolled in the professional degree programs you so distain.
2. Your suggestion that a focus on professional degrees at NU is a development of recent years is absurd — since communications programs date from 1891, music programs from 1895 and journalism programs from 1921.
— Bill
This is one hilarious post
When is the last time? Well, in 2015 NU had one of those “music, journalism and speech” types: the CEO of IBM. In 2012, another one who’s hurting grads chances of getting “serious jobs”: Dr. Paul Farmer (physician, Harvard professor and leader in the global health field). I don’t suppose Obama (2006) qualifies as a “serious graduation speaker” either.