UMass Lowell to Present Honorary Degrees to Keith Lockhart, Judy Woodruff

05/06/2016

Media contacts: Christine Gillette, 978-934-2209 or Christine_Gillette@uml.edu and Nancy Cicco, 978-934-4944 or Nancy_Cicco@uml.edu

LOWELL, Mass. – Boston Pops conductor Keith Lockhart and journalist Judy Woodruff will receive honorary degrees from UMass Lowell when they serve as Commencement speakers at ceremonies on Saturday, May 14.

Woodruff will be presented with an honorary doctorate of humane letters during the morning ceremony at 9 a.m. while Lockhart will be presented with the degree during the afternoon ceremony at 2:30 p.m. Both will be held at the Tsongas Center at UMass Lowell, 300 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Lowell.

Oscar-winning actor Chris Cooper and his wife, author and actress Marianne Leone will also receive honorary degrees during the morning ceremony. In the afternoon, successful businessman and UMass Lowell graduate John Kennedy ’70 will receive an honorary doctorate and L. Donald LaTorre ’59, ’07(H) will be presented with the Distinguished Alumni Award in recognition of his personal and professional accomplishments.

Presiding over Commencement for the first time will be Chancellor Jacquie Moloney, who earned her bachelor’s and doctorate at UMass Lowell. Moloney was named the university’s first woman chancellor in August 2015.

More about this year’s honorees:

• Judy Woodruff is the co-anchor and managing editor of the “PBS NewsHour with Gwen Ifill and Judy Woodruff” and has covered politics and other news for more than three decades. Prior to her many years with PBS, Woodruff served as a senior correspondent and anchored the daily “Inside Politics” show at CNN, and in roles with NBC News including White House correspondent. With PBS, she has been chief Washington correspondent for “The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour,” anchored the award-winning weekly documentary series “Frontline with Judy Woodruff,” and worked on PBS documentaries including 2011’s “Nancy Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime” and the extensive project on the views of young Americans, “Generation Next: Speak Up. Be Heard,” which also included installments on National Public Radio and in USA Today. Woodruff is a graduate of Duke University, where she is a trustee emerita and served as a visiting professor of public policy. The founding co-chairwoman of the International Women’s Media Foundation, she is a member of the boards of trustees of the Freedom Forum, the Newseum, the Duke Endowment and the Urban Institute. Her numerous honors include the Edward R. Murrow Lifetime Achievement Award in Broadcast Journalism/Television and the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism.
• Keith Lockhart, Boston Pops conductor, who celebrated his 20th anniversary leading the Boston Pops in 2015, is second only to Arthur Fiedler in the length of his tenure. As conductor, Lockhart has significantly expanded the orchestra’s programming, welcomed more than 250 guest artists to perform with the Pops and directed more than 1,700 Boston Pops concerts at Symphony Hall and Tanglewood, and on more than 40 tours in the U.S. and abroad. He and the Pops have participated in high-profile sports events including Super Bowl XXXVI, the 2008 NBA finals and the 2013 Boston Red Sox World Series ring ceremony, as well as major community events such as the memorial service for the Boston Marathon bombing victims and the annual July 4 Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular, which drew a live audience of approximately 500,000 last year. Lockhart has conducted on Grammy-nominated albums and has worked closely with hundreds of talented young musicians, including Fellows of the Tanglewood Music Center and area students. He introduced new performance series including JazzFest and EdgeFest, and is dedicated to building the Boston Pops’ library of more than 5,000 exclusive arrangements. Lockhart is the principal conductor of the BBC Concert Orchestra in London, where he led the 2012 Diamond Jubilee Concert for Queen Elizabeth II, and artistic director of the Brevard Music Center summer institute and festival in North Carolina. He has appeared as a guest conductor across North America, Asia and Europe. He holds degrees from Furman University and Carnegie Mellon University.
• Chris Cooper, Academy Award winner, is regarded as one of the most respected character actors of our time and has appeared in roles in numerous films, including “Adaptation,” for which he received an Oscar and Golden Globe Award; “American Beauty,” which earned him a Screen Actors Guild Award; and “Seabiscuit,” for which he was nominated for a SAG Award. He has also appeared in the recent release “Joy,” as well as “August: Osage County,” “Capote,” “The Company You Keep,” “Breach,” “The Horse Whisperer,” “Great Expectations,” “The Bourne Identity,” “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” and many other movies, as well as in TV productions like the miniseries “Lonesome Dove.” His newest projects include the Hulu original miniseries based on Stephen King’s novel “11/22/63” and the film “Coming Through the Rye,” in which he portrays author J.D. Salinger.
• Marianne Leone, actress, screenwriter and essayist, who appears in the 2016 Golden Globe-nominated movie “Joy,” and had a recurring role on HBOs “The Sopranos.” Leone has also appeared in films by John Sayles, Martin Scorsese, the Farrelly Brothers and Larry David, among others. Her essays have appeared in the Boston Globe, Post Road, Solstice, Coastal Living, Bark Magazine and WBUR’s “Cognoscenti” blog. Her critically acclaimed 2010 book, “Jesse, A Mother’s Story,” is a chronicle of the remarkable life and untimely death of her son at age 17. The Jesse Cooper Foundation supports inclusion via the Federation for Children with Special Needs and AccesSportAmerica, which provides sports for disabled children and adults.
• John Kennedy ’70, retired president and chief financial officer of Nova Ventures Corp., whose long record of philanthropy and commitment to UMass Lowell was recently recognized with the renaming of the university’s College of Sciences. The William J. and John F. Kennedy College of Sciences honors both John Kennedy, who earned a mathematics degree from UMass Lowell’s predecessor, Lowell Technological Institute, and his late brother. Kennedy, who founded and led several successful companies, including Nova Analytics and Nova Technologies, has endowed several scholarships and provided support for research and athletics facilities at UMass Lowell, as well as serving on a variety of committees and as a member of the River Hawk Venture Fund Advisory Board. Kennedy, who lives in Naples, Fla., and Johns Island, S.C., has received numerous honors, including UMass Lowell’s Distinguished Alumni Award.
• L. Donald LaTorre ’59,’07 (H), this year’s Distinguished Alumni Award recipient, is president of L&G Management Consultants, which he formed after retiring as president and chief operating officer of Engelhard Corp. His career also includes a long history with Velcro USA, BASF Corp. and Diamond Shamrock Corp. LaTorre serves on the Chancellor’s External Advisory Board, the Nanotechnology Advisory Board, the Kennedy College of Sciences Advisory Board, the River Hawk Ventures Fund Board and the Commercial Ventures and Intellectual Property Advisory Board. He has also volunteered as a judge in the annual DifferenceMakers Idea Challenge. LaTorre and his wife, Gloria, who live in Holmes Beach, Fla., and Sparta, N.J., have supported the university through the LaTorre Family Scholarship Endowment, the Alumni Events Scholarship Fund, the UMass Lowell Fund, the Dean Robert H. Tamarin Endowed Scholarship Fund and other initiatives. LaTorre – who serves on the boards of directors of Knoll Heights, Access Management and Fairleigh Dickinson University’s Silberman Business School – earned a textile chemistry degree from Lowell Technological Institute, one of UMass Lowell’s predecessor institutions, in 1959.

UMass Lowell will recognize Cooper, Leone, Kennedy and LaTorre along with top student award winners at the annual Commencement Eve Celebration on Friday, May 13 at the UMass Lowell Inn & Conference Center, 50 Warren St., Lowell. The benefit has raised millions of dollars for student scholarships since it was first held in 2008.

For more information on Commencement, visit https://www.uml.edu/commencement.

UMass Lowell is a national research university located on a high-energy campus in the heart of a global community. The university offers its 17,500 students bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in business, education, engineering, fine arts, health, humanities, sciences and social sciences. UMass Lowell delivers high-quality educational programs, vigorous hands-on learning and personal attention from leading faculty and staff, all of which prepare graduates to be ready for work, for life and for all the world offers. www.uml.edu