Father Peter Announces 2023 Commencement Speaker

Lydia McFarlane Co-News Editor

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2011. The Hollywood Report and Morning Consult poll named Holt the “most-trusted television news personality in America.”

On top of all of these honors and awards, he has received multiple Emmy Awards and a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism award. A Black man, he was named “Journalist of the Year” by the National Association of Black Journalists.

Holt is well-known for his on-the-ground reporting, reporting from the scenes of major events, including in Ukraine following Russia’s invasion, in Uvalde, Texas following the deadly shooting in a school and from the scene of natural disasters such as Hurricane Ian in Florida.

Fr. Peter believes students will be excited about this year’s speaker being Lester Holt.

“[I] think they’ll recognize the name, and I think they’ll recognize him,” he said.

The search for a commencement speaker began months ago. Fr. Peter shared that the search typically starts back in August, around the beginning of the fall semester. He shared how difficult it is to get people, especially the busy professionals that the University scouts out as potential commencement speakers, to look so far ahead in their calendars. The University also has a tradition of giving the speaker an honorary degree as their payment for taking the job, so many people turn the opportunity down because of the lack of monetary pay.

The University also searches for certain qualities in a speaker. Fr. Peter said the University wants to ensure that the speaker has something to share with students that students would find interesting or learn a life lesson from.

The question Fr. Peter asks himself while conducting the search for a speaker is, “Are their values in line with ours?”

Last year, the community erupted with commentary on the original lack of a commencement speaker at the ceremony for the Class of 2022 before Jay Wright was approved by the University board to be the speaker. However, this did not change the process of searching for a commencement speaker, Fr. Peter shared.

“I think he will have a message to offer to the graduates,” Fr. Peter said about Holt.

Fr. Peter closed the conversation by wishing the Class of 2023 “good luck” with these last few weeks of the semester, saying he looks forward to sharing more well wishes with the class at their graduation.