Class of 2007 Commencement Speaker
Due to a death in the family, Commencement Speaker Terry Gross was not able to deliver her Commencement address in person. She joined us in voice by providing a recorded version of her talk for the occasion. Since listening to her thoughtful interviews on the radio is how most of us have come to know her, we are sure that while the audience missed hearing her in person, they found this a most enjoyable alternative.
Terry Gross, host of National Public Radio program Fresh Air, will deliver the commencement address at the 143rd Vassar College commencement exercises on Sunday, May 27, 2007.
As the host of Fresh Air, NPR’s weekday magazine of contemporary arts and issues, Terry Gross’s interviews are heard by more than 4.7 million people on more than 450 public radio stations. Her guests have included many of the most celebrated artists, writers, actors, and musicians of our time, such as Philip Roth, James Brown, John Travolta, Sonny Rollins, and Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. Gross is known for her thoughtful, probing interview style.
Terry Gross began hosting and producing Fresh Air in 1975, when it was a local program broadcast by WHYY in Philadelphia. NPR has distributed the daily program since 1987, and it is now NPR’s most listened-to program, after Morning Edition and All Things Considered. In 1994, Fresh Air received a Peabody Award. In 1999, America Women In Radio and Television gave Gross a Gracie Award in the category National Network Radio Personality. In 2003, Gross received the Edward R. Murrow Award from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, for advancing the “growth, quality and positive image of radio.” Gross’s book All I Did Was Ask: Conversations with Writers, Actors, Musicians and Artists was published by Hyperion in 2004.