{"id":6125,"date":"2026-04-09T17:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T21:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/parents\/?p=6125"},"modified":"2026-04-09T17:25:03","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T21:25:03","slug":"2026-honorands-announced","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/parents\/2026\/04\/09\/2026-honorands-announced\/","title":{"rendered":"Commencement 2026: Honorands Announced"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Hello, Bates Class of 2026 Families &#8211;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We are excited to let you know that Bates has just announced the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/bates.us3.list-manage.com\/track\/click?u=67a8a039e704ed3338e24c25a&amp;id=14e60d9daf&amp;e=945ceda9e5\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">2026&nbsp;honorands<\/a>!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The following individuals will receive honorary degrees from Bates on Sunday, May 31, at the Class of 2026\u2019s Commencement ceremony:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/deborahharkness.com\/about-deborah-harkness\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Deborah Harkness<\/a>, historian and #1 internationally best-selling author of the&nbsp;<em>All Souls<\/em>&nbsp;series of novels, will receive a Doctor of Letters degree.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.beloit.edu\/live\/news\/4210-longtime-beloit-college-president-scott-bierman\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">H. Scott Bierman \u201977<\/a>, a leading economist in the study of game theory, president emeritus of Beloit College, and a former member of the Bates Board of Trustees, will receive a Doctor of Humane Letters degree.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/alleninstitute.org\/person\/ruwanthi-ru-gunawardane\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Ru Gunawardane \u201995<\/a>, a biologist who has led groundbreaking research efforts in cell biology and drug therapies, will receive a Doctor of Science degree.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.morganstanley.com\/im\/en-us\/financial-advisor\/about-us\/people-and-teams\/investment-professionals\/seema-hingorani.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Seema Hingorani<\/a>, an investment executive at Morgan Stanley and founder of the nonprofit Girls Who Invest, will receive a Doctor of Humane Letters degree.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Deborah Harkness will deliver the Bates College Commencement address. The Class of 2026&nbsp;senior speaker has not yet been announced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We\u2019ll be sharing additional updates in the coming weeks as we look ahead to celebrating this milestone with your family!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With best regards,<br>The Bates Parent Team<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/parents\/files\/2026\/03\/Commencement-2026.webp\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"900\" height=\"300\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/parents\/files\/2026\/03\/Commencement-2026-900x300.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-6084\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/parents\/files\/2026\/03\/Commencement-2026-900x300.webp 900w, https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/parents\/files\/2026\/03\/Commencement-2026-400x133.webp 400w, https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/parents\/files\/2026\/03\/Commencement-2026-768x256.webp 768w, https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/parents\/files\/2026\/03\/Commencement-2026-1200x400.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/parents\/files\/2026\/03\/Commencement-2026.webp 1350w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hello, Bates Class of 2026 Families &#8211; We are excited to let&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1619,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[25,13,46],"tags":[43],"class_list":["post-6125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-class-of-2026-families","category-email-updates","category-senior-families","tag-senior-families"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/parents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/parents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/parents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/parents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1619"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/parents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6125"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/parents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6125\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6132,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/parents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6125\/revisions\/6132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/parents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/parents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/parents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}