New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Recognition and celebration at Yale’s 322nd commencement
Paul Giamatti, Lonnie Bunch among honorees
NEW HAVEN — Actor Paul Giamatti received his third degree from Yale University Monday, an honorary doctorate in fine arts.
More than 4,000 degrees were bestowed in the university’s 322nd commencement ceremony, 1,401 of which were issued to undergraduate students at Yale College.
Giamatti, whose father, A. Bartlett Giamatti, once was the president of Yale and commissioner of Major League Baseball, was among nine honorary doctorate recipients, including founder of the National Museum of African American History and Culture and Secretary of the Smithsonian Lonnie Bunch and jurist Guido Calabresi. New urbanism founders Elizabeth PlaterZyberk and Andrés Duany received honorary doctorates in fine arts as a pair.
Among undergrads receiving degrees was Wande Owens, captain of Yale’s football team, who received a degree in computer science. His grandmother Laura Wiltz said she traveled from Silver Spring, Md., to see her grandson receive his degree.
“It’s exhilarating, and I have excessive pride in what he’s been able to accomplish as a scholar athlete,” she said. “He came at an unfortunate time with the pandemic, and if they didn’t come back to campus I thought he was going to walk away.”
Gladys Owusu flew from Ghana to New Haven to see her son Obed Larbi graduate with a degree in business management; she was joined by Larbi’s aunt, uncle, nephews and his close neighbor in the Bronx.
Nephews Joshua and Ephraim Agyeman, 10 and 7, said their uncle was the first in their family to graduate from college. They said they both want to attend Yale so they can follow in the footsteps of Barack Obama, Martin Luther King Jr. and their uncle.
“He’s a man of maturity who is focused,” said neighbor Frances Martin, who met Larbi after he left Ghana for the United States, first receiving a degree from a community college while working at the Port Authority. “Where he goes, he makes friends.”