Acclaimed, accomplished, and speaking at Tufts

This year's list of Commencement speakers boasts a unique group of distinguished individuals who have had great accomplishments in various fields including the judicial, scientific, and artistic. Here are profiles of these outstanding individuals.

Margaret H. Marshall

Keynote speaker

Margaret H. Marshall, the Massachusetts Chief Justice and the first woman to lead the state's highest and oldest court, has been chosen as the keynote speaker at the University's 147th Commencement. Chief Justice Marshall will be awarded an honorary degree at the ceremonies.

"As an activist in South Africa and now as the state's chief justice, Margaret H. Marshall has dedicated her life to protecting freedom and justice," University President Lawrence Bacow stated in an e-mail to the student body. "Chief Justice Marshall embodies the value of public service that we encourage and cultivate in all of our students at Tufts. Her tireless life's work in support of social justice should serve as inspiration to us all."

Born in South Africa, Marshall graduated from Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg in 1966. Simultaneously, she became president of the National Union of South African Students and a leader in the anti-apartheid campaign. Soon after, Marshall moved to the United States to attend graduate school, and received a master's degree from Harvard University and her J.D. from Yale Law School.

Marshall has distinguished herself during her long career as a leader in the law community, receiving numerous distinctions and awards. As a practicing attorney, Marshall was an associate, and later a partner, in the Boston law firm of Csaplar & Bok, and was a partner in the Boston law firm of Choate, Hall, & Stewart. In addition, before her appointment to the Supreme Judicial Court, she was Vice President and General Counsel of Harvard University.

First appointed as an associate justice to the state's Supreme Court in November 1996, she was named chief justice in September 1999 by then-Governor Cellucci. As chief justice, Marshall has accomplished many impressive feats, including an initiative to reform the Massachusetts court system. Marshall's long list of accomplishments also includesbecoming president of the Boston Bar Association in 1991, and receiving the American Bar Association's Margaret Brent Award.

Marshall is only the second woman to serve on the state's Supreme Judicial Court in its over 300-year history, and is the first woman to serve as chief justice.

Arthur Mitchell

Honorary degree recipient

A distinguished dancer and choreographer, Arthur Mitchell is, among other things, the founder of the Dance Theater of Harlem in New York City. He is known around the world as a groundbreaking dance innovator.

Mitchell began his dance training at New York City's High School for the Performing Arts, and upon graduation was offered a scholarship to the School of American Ballet, where he made history in 1955 when he became the first African-American male dancer to become a permanent member of a major ballet company. He joined the New York City Ballet where he quickly rose to the position of principal dancer. He spent 15 years with the company, simultaneously performing in films, television shows, nightclubs, and on Broadway.

In 1968, upon learning of the death of his hero, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mitchell became determined to do something to provide increased opportunities for children in Harlem. That summer, he began giving ballet classes to local children and in 1969, with financial assistance from the Ford Foundation, Mitchell founded the Dance Theater of Harlem, meant as both a school of the arts and a professional ballet company. Today, the Dance Theatre of Harlem is a renowned institution, comprising students and dancers from around the world.

Among the many honors and awards conferred on Mitchell are the 1997 "Americans for the Arts" Arts in Education Award, the 1987 National Medal of Arts — the highest honor awarded by the President of the United States in the arts and humanities — and the coveted MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, the School of American Ballet Lifetime Achievement Award. In 1993, Mitchell was awarded "Living Landmark" status by the New York Landmark Conservancy. Also in 1993, Mitchell became one of the youngest recipients of the Kennedy Center Honor, celebrating "an extraordinary lifetime of contributions to American culture through the performing arts."

Now receiving an honorary degree from Tufts, Mitchell has also received honorary doctorate degrees from institutions nationwide, including Hamilton College, Brown University, City College of the City University of New York, Harvard University, The Juilliard School, The New School for Social Research, North Carolina School of the Arts, and Williams College.

Mario Molina

Honorary degree recipient

Dr. Mario Molina, a Nobel Prize-winning scientist for his research on the effects of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) on the atmosphere and a professor at MIT, is a leading authority on pollution and its effects on the environment.

Molina was awarded a Nobel Prize for showing, with a University of California at Irvine colleague, that CFCs, which are often used in refrigeration and household items such as hair spray, greatly damage the ozone layer. His research, done in the early 1970s, led to profound policy changes in the decades following. Currently CFCs are banned in developed countries.

Born in Mexico City, Molina holds a Chemical Engineer degree from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, a postgraduate degree from the University of Freiburg in West Germany, and a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley. He began his years at MIT in 1989 with a joint appointment in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences and the Department of Chemistry, and was named MIT Institute Professor in 1997. Prior to joining MIT, he held teaching and research positions at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, the University of California, Irvine, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology.