Ithaca College Announces Commencement Speakers and Honorary Degree Recipients

By Dave Maley, April 1, 2022

Distinguished guests will be honored at May 22 ceremonies.

Clockwise from top left: Amy Goodman, Jeff White ’98, Sheila Katz ’05, and Letícia Guibunda ’22. (Photos submitted)

The leader of one of the nation’s largest faith-based grassroots organizations focused on social and gender justice will deliver the main address at Ithaca College’s 127th Commencement. Sheila Katz, chief executive officer of the National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW) and a 2005 Ithaca College graduate, has accepted an offer to speak at the May 22 ceremonies.

“We are excited to be celebrating the accomplishments of our graduating class and look forward to hearing from our distinguished guests at this year’s Commencement. It is our great honor and pleasure to recognize individuals whose talents, expertise, and platforms demonstrate the mission, vision, and values of Ithaca College.”

Ithaca College President La Jerne Terry Cornish.

The college will also recognize “Democracy Now!” founder and host Amy Goodman and award-winning Hollywood visual effects creator and 1998 IC graduate Jeff White with honorary Doctor of Letters degrees. Letícia Guibunda, vice president of campus affairs for the Student Governance Council, will speak on behalf of the senior class.

“We are excited to be celebrating the accomplishments of our graduating class and look forward to hearing from our distinguished guests at this year’s Commencement,” said Ithaca College President La Jerne Terry Cornish. “It is our great honor and pleasure to recognize individuals whose talents, expertise, and platforms demonstrate the mission, vision, and values of Ithaca College.”

Sheila Katz ’05

Named CEO of NCJW in 2019, Katz leads an organization comprised of more than 200,000 advocates who work to ensure that the rights of women, children, and families are protected, translated into public policy, and upheld in our courts. Katz heads a network of 56 NCJW sections across the country and a national headquarters in Washington, D.C. Through meaningful education, direct service, and strategic advocacy, NCJW empowers Jewish women and allies to engage in work that impacts marginalized communities while centering the most impacted through partnerships and coalitions.

Katz was previously the vice president of student engagement and leadership at Hillel International, the largest Jewish campus organization in the world. In her 12 years at Hillel, she founded programs to expand student participation in Jewish and civic life including “Ask Big Questions,” an award-winning national initiative to guide diverse students in meaningful conversations, and MitzVote, Hillel’s unprecedented nonpartisan civic engagement campaign.

While earning her B.A. in politics from Ithaca College, Katz served as president of the Residence Hall Association and president of Hillel at Ithaca College. She was recognized with a Campus Life Award during her senior year, and in 2019 she was honored with the Humanitarian Alumni Award by the Ithaca College Alumni Association. Katz has been named as one of the top 10 faith influencers by Religion News Service, one of the 50 most influential Jews in the world by the Jerusalem Post, and a faith leader to watch by the Center for American Progress. She has an M.S. in teaching from Pace University. Katz sits on the Board of Governors of Tel Aviv University and on the board of Heart of a Nation.

All graduating seniors were invited to compete to be chosen by the Ithaca College Commencement Committee to represent the Class of 2022 as the student speaker.

Letícia Guibunda ’22

An international student from São Paulo, Brazil, Letícia Guibunda also calls Maryland home after living there for many years. She studies within the School of Humanities and Sciences, majoring in Spanish with a self-designed minor in biological research and applied sciences.

As the vice president of campus affairs for the Student Governance Council (SGC), Guibunda represented the student body on the Presidential Search Committee. She initially was elected to the SGC as an International student senator. She has worked on campus as a student leadership consultant in the Office of Student Engagement; H&S Summer Scholars student researcher; director of marketing and public relations, historian, and treasurer for the IC African Students Association; and treasurer for the IC International Club.

Among other honors, Guibunda has received an award at the James J. Whalen Academic Symposium and other conferences for her biology research. She was also recognized in 2021 with the Anne Siegel ’81 Memorial Scholarship for involvement in the extracurricular life of the college and the John P.E. Brown ’35 Scholarship for her volunteer community service.

The granting of honorary degrees by the Ithaca College Board of Trustees upon recommendation of the faculty recognizes leaders who represent the ideals embraced by the Ithaca College community and who serve as a mirror of the college’s values, mission, and character.

Amy Goodman

Amy Goodman founded Democracy Now! in 1996 after serving for more than a decade as news director of radio station WBAI in New York City. As host and executive producer, she brings the progressive daily news program to over 1,400 public television and radio stations worldwide.

Goodman has co-authored six New York Times bestsellers, with her latest, “Democracy Now!: Twenty Years Covering the Movements Changing America,” looking back over the past two decades of the show and the powerful movements and charismatic leaders who are re-shaping our world.

In 2009, Goodman was an inaugural winner of the Izzy Award, presented by the Park Center for Independent Mediaat Ithaca College. She was later inducted into the center’s I. F. Stone Hall of Fame, open to journalists who regularly produce groundbreaking stories on the most important issues of the day, especially stories ignored or downplayed in mainstream news media.

Goodman has also been honored with the I. F. Stone Medal for Journalistic Independence Lifetime Achievement Award from the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University and is the first journalist to receive the Right Livelihood Award, widely known as the “alternative Nobel Prize.” Her reporting on East Timor and Nigeria won numerous awards, including the George Polk Award, Robert F. Kennedy Prize for International Reporting, and Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Award.

Jeff White ’98

A cinema and photography graduate of Ithaca College’s Roy H. Park School of Communications, Jeff White is visual effects supervisor and creative director for the Vancouver studio of Industrial Light and Magic, the motion picture visual effects company founded by George Lucas.

In 2018, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences honored White with a Technical Achievement Award for his original design of ILM’s procedural rigging system, Block Party.

White joined ILM in 2002 as a creature technical director, working on such films as “Star Wars: Episode III—Revenge of the Sith” and “War of the Worlds.” He has subsequently supervised visual effects for some of Hollywood’s biggest blockbusters, including “The Avengers” and “Kong: Skull Island”—receiving Oscar nominations for each—as well as films in the “Transformers” franchise. On the smaller screen, he has served as visual effects supervisor for episodes of Amazon Prime’s “The Underground Railroad,” Netflix’s “The Witcher,” and “WandaVision” on Disney+.

While a student at IC, White participated in the Connectivity Club and volunteered for a project in a local rural school district, teaching middle school students how to use computers and do PowerPoint presentations.

Ithaca College Commencement 2022

As previously announced, Ithaca College will hold Commencement ceremonies at 9:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. on Sunday, May 22, in the Glazer Arena of the Athletics and Events Center, with family and other guests in attendance. The ceremonies will also be streamed live. For more information on the celebration of the Class of 2022, visit Ithaca.edu/commencement.