In a statement released April 18, Ithaca College announced three commencement speakers and one honorary degree recipient.
Larry Hirschhorn ’80 will be the main speaker at the 2023 commencement ceremony at 10 a.m. May 21 in the Glazer Arena in the Athletics and Events Center. Hirschhorn has won four Tony Awards as a Broadway producer. After graduating from the college, he earned a master’s degree in educational theatre from New York University. He has produced 10 Broadway works — including “Hair,” “The Addams Family,” “Driving Miss Daisy” and “The Elephant Man” — co-produced a show and associate-produced a show. Hirschhorn is currently on the team producing “Hadestown” and has “Benny & Joon” and “The Flamingo Kid” in the works.
Hirschhorn co-chaired the fundraising team for Dillingham Center’s 2009 renovation and created the theater library. He endowed a theater scholarship and received the Ithaca College Alumni Association’s Professional Achievement Award in 2016.
Senior Francesca Infante-Meehan is the Class of 2023 speaker. Infante-Meehan is a theatre arts management and business administration double major at the college. Her on-campus involvement includes being a marketing manager for the Center for Theatre and Dance and serving as the Class of 2023’s director of communications. In the community, Infante-Meehan has worked with Cherry Artspace as a production associate and worked on a production about Ithaca’s homeless population, “Streets Like This,” as a digital media and marketing intern.
Loki Mullholand, a civil rights activist, filmmaker and author, will receive an honorary Doctorate of Letters. Mulholland wrote a children’s book, “She Stood for Freedom,” and produced the film “An Ordinary Hero,” both about his activist mother Joan Trumpauer Mulholland. He founded the Joan Trumpauer Mulholland Foundation, which educates people on anti-racism and social justice. He and his mother both spoke at the college’s Day of Learning event in Fall 2022.
The college grants honorary degrees based on faculty recommendations made to the Board of Trustees.
Scott Doyle, director of the Office of Energy Management and Sustainability, will be the main speaker at the Graduate Hooding and commencement at 1 p.m. May 20 in the Glazer Arena.
