Michael Bloomberg, a former Medford resident who now serves as the mayor of New York City, will speak at the year's commencement on May 20, according to a press release sent to the Daily by Director of Public Relations Kim Thurler.
Bloomberg, along with five other distinguished professionals, will also receive an honorary degree from Tufts.
"We are delighted to welcome Mayor Bloomberg back to Medford where he will be part of a very distinguished class of honorary degree recipients," University President Lawrence Bacow said in the press release.
Bloomberg, after graduating from Johns Hopkins University and earning his MBA from Harvard Business School, began a career on Wall Street. He worked at Salomon Brothers, an investment bank, and later started the company Bloomberg L.P., which first specialized in financial software and now is also involved in media and publishing.
He is also known for his philanthropy. In 2005 alone, he gave over $140 million to various charities, according to the Associated Press (AP).
In 2001 he became the mayor of New York and in 2005 he was reelected.
Other honorary degree recipients will be Dr. Thomas Jefferson (T.J.) Anderson, a well-known composer and former chair of the Tufts music department; Lord Alec Broers, an expert in nanotechnology, a Member of the House of Lords in England and the chairman of its Science and Technology Select Committee, a former president of England's Royal Academy of Engineering and a former vice chancellor of the University of Cambridge; Captain Frederick H. Hauk, a Tufts alum and an astronaut; Denise Jefferson, a contemporary dance specialist and the director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center in New York; and Thomas Schelling, who was one of the winners of the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2005.
"Each has made substantial contributions to society, and we look forward to honoring their achievements as we celebrate with our graduates," Bacow said.
