THE NEW SCHOOL TO HOLD 71st COMMENCEMENT CEREMONY
FRIDAY, MAY 18, 2007, 2:30 p.m., IN MADISON SQUARE GARDEN

SHIRIN EBADI TO DELIVER COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS AND RECEIVE
UNIVERSITY-IN-EXILE AWARD
Larry Brilliant, JoAnn Falletta, Chico Hamilton, James E. Hansen, Arthur Penn
To Receive Honorary Doctorates

New York, NY--The New School announced today that it will hold its 71st Commencement ceremony on Friday, May 18, 2007 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 and special awards. 2003 Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi will deliver the commencement address and receive the University-In-Exile Award for her courageous human rights activism. Her speech will be given in Farsi with simultaneous English translation. Honorary Degree recipients will include humanitarian Larry Brilliant, conductor/musician JoAnn Falletta, jazz musician Chico Hamilton, NASA climate expert James E. Hansen, and theater and film director Arthur Penn.

LARRY BRILLIANT, pioneering physician and philanthropist, earned his Master’s in Public Health from the university of Michigan and his MD from Wayne State University; he is a former professor of epidemiology and international health planning at University of Michigan. He helped run the World Health Organization (WHO) smallpox eradication program in India, Nepal, and Bangladesh; was a staff member of the WHO " Global Commission to Certify Smallpox Eradicated" in Burma, India, Nepal, and Iran; and served as the last U.N. inspector to visit Iran to search for hidden smallpox. The author of two books and dozens of articles on the epidemiology of smallpox, blindness, and environmental diseases, he has worked at city, county, state, federal, and international levels. More recently, he was a “first responder” for CDC’s smallpox bio-terrorism response effort, volunteered in Sri Lanka for tsunami relief, worked in India with the WHO polio eradication program and established Pandefense, an interdisciplinary consultancy to prepare for possible pandemic influenza. Dr. Brilliant was the founder of the Seva Foundation, which has raised nearly $100 million to fund sustainable global health projects in India, Nepal, Tibet, China, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Tanzania, Mexico, and Guatemala. Seva-funded or-managed eye health projects have, over the past 25 years, given back sight to more than 2 million blind people through free or very low-cost sight-restoring eye operations, in particular with Seva’s primary partner Dr. V and the Aravind Eye Hospitals in Tamil Nadu. As a technologist, he was a founder of the WELL, CEO of two public technology corporations (SoftNet Systems Inc. and Network Technologies), and most recently founded the WiFi company, Cometa.  Dr. Brilliant has received many awards from WHO and the government of India for his work in smallpox eradication, and more recently, an honorary doctorate of science from Knox College, the 2004 “International Public Health Hero” award from the University of California (Berkeley) School of Public Health, the 2005 Peacemaker Prize from the Center for Peace and Conflict Resolution at Wayne State University in Detroit, and the 2006 “Ted Prize,” which awards him “a wish to change the world.” On February 22, 2006, Google Inc. appointed him the executive director of Google.org, the philanthropic arm of Google.

SHIRIN EBADI is an Iranian lawyer and human rights activist, Shirin Ebadi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 for her pioneering efforts in democracy and human rights, concentrating on the rights of women and children. She is the first Iranian and the first Muslim woman to receive the prize. In her research, and as an activist, she is known for promoting peaceful, democratic solutions to serious problems in society. She takes an active part in the public debate and is admired by the general public in her country for her legal defense of victims of the conservative faction's attack on freedom of speech and political freedom. Ms. Ebadi is an activist for refugee rights, as well as those of women and children. She is the founder and leader of the Association for Support of Children's Rights in Iran. The author of a number of academic books and articles focused on human rights, she has had several books translated into English, including The Rights of the Child: A Study of Legal Aspects of Children's Rights in Iran, published with support from UNICEF, and History and Documentation of Human Rights in Iran. In 2006, Random House published her memoir, Iran Awakening, co-authored with young Iranian-American Azadeh Moaveni. Ms. Ebadi argues for a new interpretation of Islamic law in harmony with vital human rights such as democracy, equality before the law, religious freedom, and freedom of speech. As a lawyer, she has been involved in a number of controversial political cases. She was the attorney for the families of the writers and intellectuals who were victims of serial murders in 1999-2000. She has worked actively, and successfully, to expose the principals behind the attack on the students at Tehran University in 1999 where several students died. As a consequence, Ms. Ebadi has been imprisoned on numerous occasions. Ms. Ebadi earned a law degree from the University of Tehran. In the years 1975-79 she served as president of the city court of Tehran, one of the first female judges in Iran. After the revolution in 1979 she was forced to resign. Previously a professor at the University of Tehran, she now works as a lawyer.

JOANN FALLETTA is acclaimed by the New York Times as “one of the finest conductors of her generation,” JoAnn Falletta serves as music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic and Virginia Symphony and artistic advisor to the Honolulu Symphony. Praised by the Washington Post as having “Toscanini’s tight control over ensemble, Stokowski’s gutsy showmanship, and a controlled frenzy worthy of Bernstein,” she is a vibrant ambassador for music and an inspiring artistic leader. Highlights of Maestro Falletta’s current season with the Buffalo Philharmonic include world premiere recordings and performances including Daron Hagen’s opera The Shining Brow and a residency with John Corigliano, during which they will perform and record Mr. Tambourine Man, based on the poems of Bob Dylan. The Virginia Symphony’s season celebrates the 400th anniversary of the landing at Jamestown. Highlights include new works from Corigliano, Jennifer Higdon, Adophus Hailstork, and John Duffy, a world premiere performance of Kenneth Fuchs’ Eventide, and a televised concert featuring an orchestra of 400 with a 1607 voice chorus. Ms. Falletta has guest conducted many of the world’s orchestras. This season marks her debut with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Lisbon Metropolitan Orchestra, Sinfonieorchester Wuppertal, Rotterdam Philharmonic, National Orchestra of Belgium and the Shanghai Philharmonic. She recently made her debut with the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony and Jerusalem Symphony. Ms. Falletta is a winner of the Stokowski Competition and the recipient of the Seaver/National Endowment for the Arts Conductors Award, and the Toscanini, Ditson, and Bruno Walter Awards. She has introduced more then 300 new works by American composers, and has received eight awards from ASCAP for creative programming, the American Symphony Orchestra League’s prestigious John S. Edwards Award, and the ASCAP/ASOL award for Adventurous Programming. Her growing discography includes more then 40 titles with the London Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, Virginia Symphony, English Chamber Orchestra, New Zealand Symphony, Czech National Symphony, and the Women’s Philharmonic. Current projects include world premiere recordings of the music of Kenneth Fuchs with the London Symphony and Romeo Cascarino with the Philadelphia Philharmonic, as well as music of Paul Schoenfield with the Prague Philharmonia. Ms. Falletta received a 2006 Grammy nomination for Fuchs’ “Eventide,” Concerto for English Horn, Harp, Percussion, and String Orchestra. Her 2004 Griffes Orchestral Music recording was a Gramophone Editor’s Choice. She received her undergraduate degree from the Mannes College The New School for Music, and her master’s and doctoral degrees from Juilliard School.

CHICO HAMILTON is a legendary jazz drummer, bandleader, and founding faculty member at The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music, Foreststorn Chico Hamilton, born in 1921 in Los Angeles, had a fast-track musical education in a band with his schoolmates Charles Mingus, Illinois Jacquet, Ernie Royal, Dexter Gordon, Buddy Collette and Jack Kelso. Engagements with Lionel Hampton, Slim & Slam, T-Bone Walker, Lester Young, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Charlie Barnett, Billy Eckstine, Nat King Cole, Sammy Davis Jr., Billie Holiday, and Gerry Mulligan and six years with Lena Horne established this West Coast prodigy as a jazz drummer on the rise before he struck out on his own as a bandleader in 1955. Hamilton's impact on jazz includes the introduction of two unique and distinct bands: first in 1955 with his Original Quintet, which combined the sounds of Chico’s drums, Carson Smith’s bass, Jim Hall’s guitar, Fred Katz’s cello, and Buddy Collette’s flute; and then in 1962 with Chico on drums, Albert Stinson on bass, Gabor Szabo on guitar, and Charles Lloyd on tenor saxophone. Hamilton has also had a series of dance floor successes, including his signature song "Conquistadors" from the 1960s Impulse album El Chico and the Brazilian-influenced "Strut," from Nomad, which became so successful on the Northern Soul Scene in the UK that it had its own dance!  In addition to scores for film, original compositions, commercial jingles, more than 50 albums as a leader, and countless international tours, his recent CD Heritage is the last of four albums he released in 2006, the others being Juniflip, Believe, and 6th Avenue Romp.  Some of Hamilton’s many awards include the Kennedy Center Living Jazz Legend Award, the 1997 Beacons in Jazz Award from New School Jazz in recognition of his "significant contribution to the evolution of jazz," the WLIU-FM Radio Lifetime Achievement Award in 2002, an NEA Jazz Master Fellowship in 2004, and the confirmation by Congress of his nomination to the President’s Council on the Arts in 2006. In addition to teaching Ensembles and Rhythm Concepts at The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music. Chico continues to tours extensively with his group Euphoria, composes and performs music for film, and recently began writing his autobiography.

DR. JAMES E. HANSEN heads the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City. He also has served as an adjunct professor in the Earth and Environmental Sciences Department at Columbia University since 1985. As a college student at the University of Iowa, where he earned his BA in Physics and Mathematics, MS in Astronomy, and PhD in Physics, Dr. Hansen was attracted to science and research by James Van Allen's space science program in the physics and astronomy department. A decade later, he started focusing on planetary research aimed at trying to understand the climate change on earth resulting from anthropogenic changes of the atmospheric composition. One of Dr. Hansen’s research interests is radiative transfer in planetary atmospheres, especially interpreting remote sounding of the earth's atmosphere and surface from satellites. Such data, appropriately analyzed, may provide one of the most effective ways to monitor and study global change on the earth. Dr. Hansen is also interested in the development and application of global numerical models for the purpose of understanding current climate trends and projecting humans' potential impacts on climate. Since the late 1970s, he has worked on studies and computer simulations of the Earth's climate.  Dr. Hansen is best known for his testimony on climate change to congressional committees in the 1980s, which helped raise broad awareness of the global warming issue. Dr. Hansen was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1995 and he received the prestigious Heinz Environment Award for his research on global warming in 2001.

ARTHUR PENN has achieved extraordinary success as a director of live television dramas, Broadway plays, and feature films. After concluding his military service in the Second World War, Mr. Penn attended Black Mountain College in North Carolina, the experimental school that threw him into an intellectual cauldron with Willem de Kooning, John Cage, Merce Cunningham, and Buckminster Fuller. He continued his education at the Universities of Perugina and Florence in Renaissance Italian poetry, then returned to New York and the burgeoning new medium of television, working his way from holding cue cards for Milton Berle to directing some of the most memorable television dramas for programs like Philco Playhouse and Playhouse 90. Arthur Penn was one of the first young artists to join the Actors Studio, learning the acting and directing crafts from such masters as Michael Chekhov, Lee Strasberg and Elia Kazan. Penn then turned his talent to Broadway, making his debut as director of The Lovers (1956). Then came in quick succession, Two for the Seesaw (1958), starring Henry Fonda and Anne Bancroft, and The Miracle Worker (1957), for which he won the Tony as Best Director, quickly followed by Lillian Hellman's Toys in the Attic (1960), An Evening with Mike Nichols and Elaine May (1960), and Tad Mosel's All the Way Home (1960), which won a Pulitzer Prize, and earned him a reputation as the most gifted director since Kazan. His film career includes the film adaptation of The Miracle Worker (1962, his first Oscar nomination) and such illustrious movies as The Chase (1966), Bonnie and Clyd e (1967, his second Oscar nomination), Alice's Restaurant (1969, his third Oscar nomination), Little Big Man (1970), Night Moves (1975), The Missouri Breaks (1976), and Four Friends (1981). Mr. Penn served as president of the Actors Studio from 1992 to 2000.  In 1994, he returned to The New School where decades earlier he had operated the lights for Erwin Piscator’s Dramatic Workshop in what is now the balcony of the John L. Tishman auditorium. He joined with other Actors Studio members to create the first degree-granting school in the then 47-year-old history of the Actors Studio.

ABOUT THE NEW SCHOOL AND THE UNIVERSITY-IN-EXILE AWARD

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. New School students participate in programs that strive for academic excellence, technical mastery, and engaged world citizenship. The 8,867 matriculated students and more than 5,663 continuing education students who attend the university enjoy small class sizes, superior resources, and renowned working faculty members 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. 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.

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. In 1933, New School President Alvin Johnson established the University in Exile to provide a safe haven for scholars whose lives and careers were threatened by the rise of National Socialism.  To commemorate his legacy and reaffirm the university's commitment to academic freedom, human rights, and democracy, the Board of Trustees established the University in Exile Award in 1998. Recipients have included unsung heroes and prominent leaders devoted to advancing the cause of freedom around the world.

For more information about The New School, please visit www.newschool.edu