Journalist Kristof To Address KSG Grads

Commencement dates can be a little confusing when it comes to Nicholas D. Kristof ’82.

But this time around, Kristof—who enacted advanced standing to graduate from the College in 1981, a year before his peers, and only recently switched his class affiliation to 1982—will have to get his dates right. He is due to give the farewell address at the Kennedy School of Government (KSG) graduation exercises today at 2 p.m., and will be serving as the class marshal for his class’s 25th reunion ceremonies.

Key KSG administrators have expressed their pleasure with the selection of Kristof, who joins Donna E. Shalala, the former secretary of health and human services and Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen, a Lamont University professor emeritus, on the roster of KSG commencement speakers past and present.

“Kristof understands the importance of storytelling as a means for bringing the struggles of the world into the living rooms of America,” said Sarah B. Sewell, the Director of the KSG’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. “And that is a rare and valuable talent in American journalism today.”

The two-time Pulitzer Prize winning journalist joined the New York Times in 1984 as an economics reporter and has since drawn accolades for his correspondence from places as far flung as Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Beijing and Tokyo.

Kristof was a “perfect” choice to deliver remarks to the KSG graduating class, according to a statement from KSG Senior Associate Dean and Director of Degree Programs Joseph McCarthy.

“The New York Times is this country’s paper of record,” wrote McCarthy. “And therefore I don’t think it’s going too far at all to call Nick Kristof the conscience of America.”

As to what Kristof might be able to impart to an audience of Kennedy School graduates, KSG lecturer Linda J. Bilmes ’80, who recalled that Kristof’s column had given careful attention to some of her major pieces of research, said that Kristof’s emphases would be particularly relevant to an audience of graduating KSG student.

“I think he really gets...what is important to young people,” she said. “And in terms of what is important to people who are graduating—Darfur is important, climate change is important...Iraq is important, and he gets that.”

The son of two college professors, Kristof came to Harvard from rural Yamhill, Oregon. After graduating Phi Beta Kappa in 1981, he attended Oxford to study law on a Rhodes scholarship. His first Pulitzer, which he won jointly with his wife, came in 1990 for coverage of China’s Tiananmen Square democracy movement.

According to Yiting Shen, a member of the KSG Class of 2007, the selection of a reporter who could “actually voice out his opinions” highlighted the importance of journalism to free dialogue.

—Staff writer Christian B. Flow can be reached at cflow@fas.harvard.edu.