1996 College graduate and actor Elizabeth Banks will be the Class of 2025 Commencement speaker (Photo by Gage Skidmore | CC BY-SA 2.0).
American actress, director, and producer and 1996 College graduate Elizabeth Banks will deliver Penn’s Commencement speech for the Class of 2025.
Penn will also grant Banks — who made her directorial debut with “Pitch Perfect 2” in 2015 — an honorary doctor of arts degree, according to a March 24 announcement made by from vice president and University secretary Medha Narvekar. The 269th Commencement, which is set to take place on May 19 at Franklin Field, will grant degrees to graduates, celebrate honorary degree recipients, and feature remarks from University officials and the Commencement speaker.
Banks is known for her starring roles in “The Hunger Games” and “Love & Mercy,” and has been nominated for three Emmy Awards for her roles in “30 Rock” and “Modern Family.” Banks has also directed hit films such as “Charlie’s Angels” and “Cocaine Bear.”
“Since graduating from Penn’s School of Arts and Sciences in 1996, Ms. Banks has made her mark in film and television not only as a highly respected performer, but as a talented director and successful producer,” Penn President Larry Jameson wrote in the announcement. “She has also been an outspoken advocate for important issues, such as gender equity and health care for veterans, and it will be an honor to welcome her back to campus in May.”
According to the announcement, three other individuals will receive honorary degrees at commencement alongside Banks: Lonnie Bunch, Lene Hau, and Barbara Savage.
Bunch currently serves as the 14th secretary of the Smithsonian Institution — a position he has held since 2019. He is the first African American and first historian to serve in the role. Bunch previously served as the director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.
At Commencement, Bunch will receive an honorary doctor of humane letters degree.
Hau, who currently serves as the Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics and of Applied Physics at Harvard University, will receive an honorary doctor of sciences degree. Hau was a senior scientist at the Rowland Institute for Science in Cambridge prior to her time at Harvard.
She was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2001 and has also been elected to the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and numerous other accolades.
Penn’s Geraldine R. Segal Professor Emerita of American Social Thought and Africana Studies Barbara Savage will also receive an honorary doctor of humane letters degree.
Before retiring from Penn in 2020, Savage was a member of the History Department from 1995-2013. She then served as inaugural chair of the Department of Africana Studies.
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