May 2, 2005—William Schulz '71, executive director of Amnesty International USA and an expert on civil rights and human rights records worldwide, will deliver this year's Commencement address at Oberlin College.

More than 600 students are expected to receive degrees on Memorial Day, when Oberlin College holds its 172nd Commencement at 9:30 a.m. on Tappan Square.

During the commencement exercises Schulz will be presented with an honorary Doctor of Humanities degree. British composer Sir Harrison Birtwistle and Adam Moss '79, editor-in-chief of New York magazine, will also receive honorary degrees from the College.  

In addition, Midge Wood Brittingham '60 will receive the College's Alumni Medal, awarded in recognition of outstanding and sustained service to Oberlin College and its extended community. Brittingham was executive director of Oberlin's Office of Alumni Affairs for 28 years; she retired in January 2004.

Music educator Harriet A. Thomas '76, a 29-year veteran in the Oberlin school system, will receive Oberlin's annual award for distinguished service to the community. Thomas was nominated for her efforts "as a positive, quiet force for our children," says Joanne Erwin, associate professor of music education in the Oberlin Conservatory of Music.

Some 5,000 visitors will converge on Oberlin during the weekend of May 27 - 30. The weekend will feature various events and activities, many free and open to the public.

The weekend highlights will include a baccalaureate address by Sharon Daloz Parks, author of Big Questions, Worthy Dreams: Mentoring Young Adults in Their Search for Meaning, Purpose and Faith in Finney Chapel at 4 p.m. Sunday, May 29. Finney Chapel is located at the corner of Professor and Lorain streets.

The colorful and festive Campus Illumination and band concert will begin that evening at 9 p.m. on Tappan Square.

A complete schedule of other weekend activities--including symposia, campus tours, concerts, recitals, theatrical performances, and tours of Oberlin's perennial gardens and historic homes--can be obtained by calling the Oberlin Alumni Association at 440-775-8692 or viewed online.

Biographies:
William F. Schulz '71 - Doctor of Humanities
An expert on civil rights and human rights records worldwide, William F. Schulz has served as executive director of Amnesty International USA since 1994.

He has traveled extensively on investigative missions, including a 1997 mission to Liberia to investigate atrocities committed during that country's civil war. Two years later he flew to Northern Ireland, where he urged participants in the peace process to include human rights protections in their negotiations.

In September 2004, he traveled to another crucible of violence, Darfur, in southern Sudan, where Amnesty delegates spent considerable time in the refugee camps listening to horror stories from victims of the genocide.

Throughout his 27-year career, he has spoken out in opposition to the death penalty; supported women's rights, gay and lesbian rights, and racial justice; organized demonstrations; and written extensively on behalf of all four causes, including his 2003 book Tainted Legacy: 9/11 and the Ruin of Human Rights.

Schulz has appeared frequently on radio and television programs, including 60 Minutes, 20/20, The Today Show, and Good Morning, America as well as on programs on NPR, the BBC, and CNN, among others. He is published and widely read in newspapers and magazines throughout the U.S.

An ordained Unitarian Universalist minister, Schulz was president of the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations for eight years.

During his visit to campus in September 2004, Schulz was presented with the Alumni Association's Distinguished Achievement Award. Presenter and fellow classmate Wendell Russell '71 praised Schulz's career as "representing the best of Oberlin's values of internationalism, social justice, and the advancement of human rights."

The recipient of numerous human rights awards, Schulz was named one of the "World's 365 Most Influential People" by the Pray 365 Project and chosen "Humanist of the Year" by the American Humanist Association in 2000.

Sir Harrison Birtwistle--Doctor of Musical Arts
A native of Accrington, England, Birtwistle studied clarinet and composition at the Royal Manchester College of Music. In 1965, he sold his clarinets to devote all his efforts to composition, and he moved to Princeton, where he was named a Harness Fellow. It was there that he completed the opera Punch and Judy. This work, together with Verses for Ensembles and The Triumph of Time, firmly established Birtwistle as one of the great composers of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Today, Birtwistle's scores are performed by such international conductors as Pierre Boulez, Daniel Barenboim, Oliver Knussen, and Sir Simon Rattle. His work has been commissioned by leading performing organizations, such as the Cleveland Orchestra, for which Birtwistle composed Panic, a jazzy 'concerto' for solo saxophone and percussion, which premiered at the 1995 Last Night of the BBC Proms to an audience of 100 million worldwide.

Birtwistle's awards and honors include the Siemens Prize in 1995, the Chevalier des Arts et des Letters in 1986, a British Companion of Honor in 2001, and a British knighthood in 1988. He currently serves as director of composition at the Royal Academy of Music in London.

Adam Moss '79--Doctor of Humanities
Adam Moss earned the B.A. degree from Oberlin in 1979. As a student, he was an outstanding editor of the Oberlin Review, a harbinger of things to come.

"For many years, Moss has been a key player in New York media and he is widely acknowledged as one of the most talented editors in the industry. He possesses "an uncanny ability to produce award-winning magazines that are provocative, intelligent, and insightful , " said Anup Bagaria, chief executive officer of New York Media Holdings, in Business Wire, when Moss was named editor-in-chief of New York magazine in 2004 .

Moss' first job in journalism was as a copy boy at the New York Times. He went to Rolling Stone, then to Esquire, rising to deputy editor before becoming the founding editor of the award-winning New York weekly magazine 7 Days in 1988.

Moss was a consulting editor to The New York Times in 1990 and 1991. He joined the New York Times Magazine as editorial director in 1993 and was named its editor in 1998. In 2000, he assumed the role of associate managing editor, while remaining editor of the New York Times Magazine. He also was the Times assistant managing editor for features for the New York Times newspaper, a position that was created for him in August 2003.

Under his leadership, the magazine was twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and the issue "Talking About Race" was part of the Times series that won the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting in 2001.

The Columbia Journalism Review named Moss one of the 10 Best Magazine Editors in 2000, and Advertising Age dubbed him Editor of the Year in 2001.