{"id":416,"date":"2024-02-13T13:28:02","date_gmt":"2024-02-13T13:28:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.smcm.edu\/commencement\/?page_id=416"},"modified":"2026-03-03T17:55:35","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T17:55:35","slug":"past-commencement-speakers","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.smcm.edu\/commencement\/past-commencement-speakers\/","title":{"rendered":"Past Commencement Speakers"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"pl-416\"  class=\"panel-layout\" ><div id=\"pg-416-0\"  class=\"panel-grid panel-no-style\" ><div id=\"pgc-416-0-0\"  class=\"panel-grid-cell\" ><div id=\"panel-416-0-0-0\" class=\"so-panel widget widget_text panel-first-child panel-last-child\" data-index=\"0\" >\t\t\t<div class=\"textwidget\"><p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">2025: <strong>Congressman Jamie Raskin<\/strong>, serving\u00a0his fifth term representing Maryland\u2019s 8th Congressional District in the House of Representatives and is the Ranking Member on the House Committee on the Judiciary.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">2024: <strong>Steny H. Hoyer<\/strong>, Maryland\u2019s longest-serving member of the U.S. House of Representatives<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">2023: <strong>Ang\u00e9lique Kidjo<\/strong>, five-time Grammy Award winning singer and performer, as well as a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF and OXFAM.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">2022: <strong>Terron L. Hillsman<\/strong>, \u00a0director of the ecological sciences division for the U.S. Department of Agriculture\u2019s Natural Resources Conservation Services.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">2020 &amp; 2021:<strong> Brandon M. Scott \u201906<\/strong>, the 52<sup>nd<\/sup> mayor of Baltimore, Maryland.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">2019: <strong>Erin Gloria Ryan<\/strong>, host of Crooked Media\u2019s \u201cHysteria\u201d podcast, a writer for \u201cIt&#8217;s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,\u201d and a senior editor at The Daily Beast.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">2018: <strong>Wanda Q. Draper<\/strong>, executive director of the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">2017: <strong>W. Neil Irwin &#8217;00<\/strong>, senior economic correspondent at The New York Times and author of \u201cThe Alchemists: Three Central Bankers and a World on Fire\u201d (Penguin Press, 2013). As senior economic correspondent at The New York Times, Irwin writes for The Upshot, the Times\u2019 website for analytical reporting on politics, economics, and everyday life.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">2016: \u00a0<strong>Kojo Nnamdi<\/strong>, host of \u201cThe Kojo Nnamdi Show,\u201d a daily news program produced by American University\u2019s WAMU 88.5. In addition, he is host of WAMU\u2019s \u201cThe Politics Hour.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>2025: Congressman Jamie Raskin, serving\u00a0his fifth term representing Maryland\u2019s 8th Congressional District in the House of Representatives and is the Ranking Member on the House Committee on the Judiciary. 2024: Steny H. Hoyer, Maryland\u2019s longest-serving member of the U.S. House of Representatives 2023: Ang\u00e9lique Kidjo, five-time Grammy Award winning singer and performer, as well as<a class=\"tribe-events-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.smcm.edu\/commencement\/past-commencement-speakers\/\" rel=\"bookmark\" > Find out more &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":245,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":{"0":"post-416","1":"page","2":"type-page","3":"status-publish","5":"entry"},"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smcm.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smcm.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smcm.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smcm.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/245"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smcm.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.smcm.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/416\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":553,"href":"https:\/\/www.smcm.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/416\/revisions\/553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smcm.edu\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}