THE NEW SCHOOL TO HOLD 70th COMMENCEMENT CEREMONY
FRIDAY, MAY 19, 2006 AT 2:30 p.m., IN MADISON SQUARE GARDEN

New School President Bob Kerrey and
Senator John S. McCain to address the graduates

Honorary doctorates will be awarded to Senator McCain, performance artist Laurie Anderson,
human rights advocate Sidney Jones, sustainable design expert Ezio Manzini, and
Nobel Prize winning economist Robert M. Solow

New York, May 9, 2006— The New School will hold its 70th Commencement ceremony on Friday, May 19, 2006 at 2:30 p.m., at the Theater at Madison Square Garden in Manhattan. New School President Bob Kerrey will address the graduates and confer the honorary degrees. Senator John S. McCain (R-Arizona) will deliver the commencement address. Senator McCain will join performance artist Laurie Anderson, human rights advocate Sidney Jones, sustainable design expert Ezio Manzini, and Nobel Prize winning economist Robert M. Solow in receiving honorary degrees. The New School expects to graduate 2630 students at its Commencement ceremony.

U.S Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) has had a long career of public service. Lt. Commander McCain served as an aircraft carrier pilot during the Vietnam War and on Oct. 26, 1967, was shot down over Hanoi, were he spent five years as a prisoner of war, two of them in solitary confinement. He stayed in the Navy until 1981, and his military awards include the Silver Star, the Bronze Star, the Legion of Merit, Purple Heart, and the Distinguished Flying Cross. In 1982, John McCain was elected to Congress representing what was then the first congressional district of Arizona. In 1986, with the retirement of Barry Goldwater from the U.S. Senate, John McCain was elected to succeed him. In 2000, Senator McCain was a candidate for the Republican nomination for President of the United States. He is currently the chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs and serves on the Armed Services and the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committees.

Laurie Anderson is one of today’s premier performance artists. Known primarily for her multimedia presentations, she has cast herself in roles as varied as visual artist, composer, poet, photographer, filmmaker, electronics whiz, vocalist, and instrumentalist. Her awards include the 2001 Tenco Prize for Songwriting in San Remo, Italy, and the 2001 Deutsche Schallplatten Prize for Life On A String, as well as grants from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2002, Ms. Anderson was appointed the first artist-in-residence at NASA. Ms. Anderson was also recently part of the team that created the opening ceremony for the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. Her current solo performance The End of the Moon continues to tour the United States and Europe throughout 2006.

Sidney Jones has been an advocate in the field of human rights and conflict resolution for more than 20 years. She has worked as the executive director of the Asia Division for Human Rights Watch, as the Indonesia and Philippines researcher for Amnesty International, and as a program officer for the Ford Foundation. She is currently the South East Asia project director of the International Crisis Group (ICG). She has traced the development of terrorist networks in Indonesia and across South East Asia, working on conflict–resolution policies to aid the transition to democracy in the region. Her work in Indonesia was deemed too controversial by the Indonesian government and, as a result, she and several others working for ICG were recently expelled. She is one of the foremost experts on religion, terrorism, and human rights in South East Asia, and she continues to advocate policies and actions to prevent terrorist attacks such as those that have occurred in Bali and Jakarta.

Ezio Manzini is one of the world's leading experts on sustainable design. He is professor of Industrial Design at the Milan Polytechnic, where he is also director of the Research, Design, and Innovation for Sustainability Unit and coordinator of the Doctorate in Industrial Design, as well as the coordinator of the Scientific Committee of the Master in Strategic Design. Currently, he is also visiting lecturer at the Tohoku University in Japan. Professor Manzini’s work is based on strategic design and design for sustainability, with a focus on scenario building and solution development. He has been involved in several international commissions, expert panels, and working groups, and he also has been a guest professor or speaker at several international universities. In particular, he has been director of the Domus Academy in Milan, and he spent one year as chair and professor of Design under the Distinguished Scholars Scheme at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He is a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Industrial Ecology (U.S.), Journal for Sustainable Product Design (UK), and Design Philosophical Papers (Australia).

Robert M. Solow is Institute Professor Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he has been a professor of economics since 1949, teaching macroeconomics and other subjects to undergraduate and graduate students until 1996. Professor Solow studied at Harvard and received the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1987 for his theory of growth and the National Medal of Science in 2000. He served as a member of the board of directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston from 1974 until 1980, serving as chairman of that board for three years. He was president of the Econometric Society, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a fellow of the British Academy, and a former member of the National Science Board. From 1961 to 1963, he was a senior economist with President Kennedy’s Council of Economic Advisers. In 1961, he won the American Economic Association’s John Bates Clark Award, given to the best economist under 40, and, in 1979, he was president of that association. Professor Solow has written numerous articles and books on economic growth, macroeconomics, and the theory of unemployment, and occasional reviews in the New York Review of Books and the New Republic. Professor Solow is currently Foundation Scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation, where he is participating in an extensive study of the sustainability of high employment.

ABOUT THE UNIVERSITY

Located in the heart of New York’s Greenwich Village, The New School is a center of academic excellence where intellectual and artistic freedoms thrive. The 9,000 matriculated students and more than 6,000 continuing education students who attend the university’s eight schools enjoy a disciplined education supported by small class sizes, superior resources, and renowned working faculty who practice what they teach. Artists, scholars, and students from all walks of life attend its diverse programs and can earn everything from program certificates to bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees. When The New School was founded in 1919, its mission was to create a place where global peace and justice were more than theoretical ideals. Today, The New School continues that mission and endeavors to foster worthy and just citizens of the world.

The eight schools that make up The New School are: The New School for General Studies, The New School for Social Research, Milano The New School for Management and Urban Policy, Parsons The New School for Design, Eugene Lang College The New School for Liberal Arts, Mannes College The New School for Music, The New School for Drama, and The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music.

For more information about the university, please visit www.newschool.edu