3/22/2024

Dear Members of the Campus Community,

It is with great pleasure that I announce this year’s Commencement speaker and the honorary degrees that will be conferred at Puget Sound’s 132nd Commencement Ceremony on Sunday, May 5, 2024.

Julie Lythcott-Haims
New York Times bestselling author, educator, and community leader Julie Lythcott-Haims will deliver this year’s Commencement address and receive an honorary degree, Puget Sound’s highest honor.

Lythcott-Haims is the author of How to Raise an Adult, a book that grew out of her experience as the former dean of freshmen at Stanford University. When it was published in 2015, it sparked a national discussion around parenting and fostering autonomy in college students. Her TED Talk, “How to Raise Successful Kids—Without Overparenting,” has been viewed 7 million times. Her searing 2017 memoir, Real American, explores her experience of growing up as a Black biracial woman in white spaces, and her third book, Your Turn: How to Be an Adult, which came out in 2021, is a compassionate and practical guide to living a more authentic adulthood.

A highly sought-after speaker, Lythcott-Haims holds degrees from Stanford University, Harvard Law School, and California College of the Arts. She currently serves on the Board of Trustees at California College of the Arts. She lives in Palo Alto, California, where she is a member of the city council. She was recently named Legislator of the Year by the NAACP of Silicon Valley.

Liz Begert Dunbar
In addition to our Commencement speaker, I am pleased to share that Puget Sound will also confer an honorary degree on Liz Begert Dunbar.

From 2009 to 2018, Liz Dunbar was executive director of Tacoma Community House (TCH), an organization that serves immigrants, refugees, and others seeking to learn English, earn a GED, gain citizenship and find employment. As the leader of TCH, Dunbar advocated for our region’s increasingly diverse and global immigrant population through its social justice work and equity-advancing programs.

Previously, Dunbar held several positions with the Washington State Department of Social & Health Services, first as the state refugee coordinator and later as deputy secretary. The daughter of a Japanese immigrant mother and an Air Force officer father, she is a longtime member of the Japanese American Citizens League and serves on the board of its Puyallup Valley Chapter.

She serves on the board of the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project and the advisory board for the School of Urban Studies at the University of Washington Tacoma. She has also served on the board of Pioneer Human Services, and the Board of Trustees for Tacoma Community College. She holds a bachelor’s degree in social work from Washington State University and a certificate for senior leaders in state and local government from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

I look forward to celebrating the accomplishments of our graduates and our two distinguished honorands this May.

With congratulations to our undergraduate and graduate Classes of 2024,

Isiaah Crawford, President