BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Illinois Wesleyan University’s 161st Commencement will be Sunday, May 1 at 1 p.m. on the Eckley Quadrangle, with nearly 460 graduates expected to participate. During the ceremonies, honorary doctor of humane letters degrees will be presented to poet and Guggenheim Fellow Linda Gregerson and Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Almudena Carracedo.
Gregerson, a 2007 National Book Award finalist, will deliver the address “Just in Time” for the ceremony after receiving her honorary doctorate from Board of Trustees Chair George Vinyard. The poet has an abiding connection to Illinois Wesleyan through her daughter, who will graduate with the class of 2011.
The Caroline Walker Bynum Distinguished University Professor of English Language and Literature at the University of Michigan, Gregerson teaches creative writing and Renaissance literature. A celebrated poet, Gregerson’s works include Magnetic North (Houghton Mifflin, 2007), Waterborne (Houghton Mifflin, 2002) and The Woman Who Died in Her Sleep (Houghton Mifflin, 1998). Magnetic North was a finalist for the National Book Award, and she won the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award for Waterborne. The Woman Who Died in Her Sleep was a finalist for both The Poet’s Prize and the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize.