NORTHAMPTON — The rumors floating around the Smith College campus this week were true — Oprah Winfrey will deliver the commencement address at May’s graduation.
“Oprah, Oprah, Oprah,” students chanted Thursday when Smith College President Kathleen McCartney made the announcement at the end of the college’s annual Rally Day.
The event included a visit by social activist Gloria Steinem, one of five alumnae being celebrated for their contributions to women’s leadership around the globe with a Smith College Medal.
“Oprah, Oprah, Oprah,” students chanted.
“I screamed so loud I lost my voice,” senior Natalie Larson said. “I’m so excited I can’t believe it.”
Winfrey, a cable network owner, philanthropist, producer and actress, is most well-known for her award winning program “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” which she hosted for 25 years.
Oprah will visit Smith College a day after giving the commencement address at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York.
She is chairman and CEO of the cable network “OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network” and is founder of “O, The Oprah Winfrey Magazine.” Winfrey was awarded the Medal of Freedom in 2013, the nation’s highest civilian honor.
At the commencement, Winfrey will receive an honorary degree along with Clare Higgins, executive director at Community Action and former mayor of Northampton; Michelle Kwan, an Olympic medalist, and world and U.S. champion figure skater; Henrietta Mann, a Native American education and tribal leader, and founding president of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribal College; and Erin O’Shea, president of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, a Harvard University professor and a 1988 Smith College graduate.
Times have changed since Gloria Stienem graduated from Smith College in 1956. Steinem, who was a leader in the women’s movement and co-founded “Ms.” magazine, said there were no courses in women’s, African-American or LGBT studies.
Steinem said students were basically “learning what the young white men of Harvard were learning.”
And classes were far less diverse. Steinem said there were no African-American or Latino women.
But the world has changed.
“We have gone from love between two women and two men as literally illegal to marriage equality,” she said.
And the Women’s March on Washington was one of the biggest marches in history, Steinem added.
When awarded the Smith College Medal, Steinem said “It’s not only a medal for me, it’s a celebration.”
Other medalists include economist Laura D’Andrea Tyson, pulmonary and critical care specialist Vickie Shannon, journalist Ellen Weiss and winemaker Helen Keplinger.
Tyson, who graduated in 1969, said she was enrolled at Smith during a time when Steinem “unleashed a second wave of feminism.”
While woman have made progress in economics, Tyson said there is still a gender gap.
“Women of the world,” Tyson said to the crowd of students. “Go out there and make the world a better place.”
Shannon graduated in 1979. Her father was a steel worker who worked “blood, sweat and tears” to raise eight children.
“He believed a women’s workplace was in the home,” Shannon said.
But her fathers views on gender roles only fueled her career, she said.
Now, Shannon works as a pulmonary and critical care specialist who focuses on pulmonary rehabilitation in cancer patients. She is also one of the first two African-American women to be named full professor at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, one of the world’s premier cancer centers.
But Shannon’s success was not easy. As an African-American woman, she faced a double glass ceiling, she told the crowd.
Weiss, vice president and Washington bureau chief of EW Scripps Company, graduated from Smith in 1981.
In her decades in journalism, Weiss said she has seen it change, noting talented female reporters, foreign correspondents and editors. But Weiss said the people making decisions in the industry remains mostly men.
“I am still surprised at the number of times it walk into a meeting and I am the woman or one of two women standing in the room,” Weiss said. “So, like Gloria said, we have work to do.”
Seniors, eyeing graduation just three months away, filled the John M. Greene Hall for Rally Day.
Since 1944, the day marks the first time seniors can publicly wear their commencement gowns. In recent years, caps have been replaced by silly and inventive hats.
Headpieces ranged from tiaras and flower crowns to quirky animal hats. One student wore a floppy hat made to look like a sunny side up egg with bacon.
“It’s all going by so fast,” said senior Margaret Anne Smith, a neurology major who sported a handmade hat of a brain.
After graduation, Steinem said many of the women go on to do great things.
“Everywhere I go…I see Smith women doing amazing, amazing things and I am so, so proud,” Steinem said. “I will always be with you one way or another.”
Caitlin Ashworth can be reached at cashworth@gazettenet.com.