Boston-area colleges have recruited speakers to deliver their 2003 commencement addresses. Among them:

Harvard – Ernesto Zedillo (former President of Mexico)

Boston College – Erik Weihenmayer (first sightless climber to scale Mt. Everest)

Massachusetts Institute of Technology – George J. Mitchell (former US Senator)

Northeastern University – Christine Todd Whitman (US Environmental Advisor)

Tufts University – Margaret H. Marshall (first female Chief Supreme Court Justice)

Simmons College – Amy Tan (world renowned Chinese-American author, wrote “The Joy Luck Club”)

Emerson College – Joseph Biden (US Senator, Delware (D))

Emmanuel College – Jean MacCormack (Chancellor, UMass Dartmouth)

University of Massachusetts-Boston – Marian Wright Edelman (President of Children’s Defense Fund)

Wheaton College – David Levering Lewis (Two time Pulitzer Prize winner)

Lesley University – John Lewis (US Rep. – Georgia)

Framingham State College – Jack Prelutsky (Children’s author/poet)

Suffolk University – Tim Russert (Host of NBC “Meet The Press”) and Janet Reno (former US Attorney General)

Berklee School of Music – Stephen Tyler (Lead singer of Aerosmith) and Diane Reeves (Jazz vocalist)

Brandeis University – Aharon Barak (President of Israel’s Supreme Court)

Regis College – Elizabeth Frawley Bagley (US Ambassador to Portugal)