Purchase College Announces Speakers For 2019 Commencement

Purchase College, SUNY will hold its 47th annual commencement ceremony on Friday, May 17, 2019 at 12:30 p.m. at the Westchester County Center in White Plains, NY. Degrees will be conferred upon more than 1,000 graduating scholars representing dozens of majors and several countries.

This will be the last commencement ceremony led by Purchase College President Thomas J. Schwarz, who is the longest serving Purchase president. President Schwarz, who is retiring after 17 years, has helped the college reach new heights academically, financially, and in terms of sustainability.

President Schwarz said, "Though many look at graduation as an end, the word commencement itself refers to a beginning. This is especially resonant to me this year. While there have been many changes over the course of my tenure, the accomplishments, passion, and academic excellence of our students never ceases to inspire me. I have no doubt that this year's graduating class will continue in the Purchase tradition of Thinking Wide Open as they forge new pathways and uphold the values they have learned at Purchase, much like the two ground breaking alumni we are honoring this year. "

This year, acclaimed artist Fred Douglas Wilson '76 will receive an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree and production designer Ina Mayhew '81 will receive the President's Award for Distinguished Alumni.

Anaya Brannon, a Studio Composition major who works as a resident assistant and food pantry staff member, will offer remarks on behalf of the senior class. Brandon Vernon, a Vocal Performance major from the Conservatory of Music, a student leader and a resident assistant as well, will perform the National Anthem.

Fred Douglas Wilson is a conceptual artist whose work investigates cultural, historical, and museological, issues, which are largely overlooked or neglected by museums and cultural institutions. Since his groundbreaking exhibition Mining the Museum (1992) at the Maryland Historical Society, Wilson has been the subject of more than 40 solo exhibitions around the globe, including the retrospective Objects and Installations 1979-2000, which was organized by the Center for Art and Visual Culture at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. His work has been exhibited extensively in museums including the Museum of Modern Art, NY, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, the Allen Memorial Museum at Oberlin College, Ohio, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Institute of Jamaica, W.I., the Museum of World Cultures, Sweden, the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College, and the Ian Potter Museum of Art at the University of Melbourne, Australia. His work can be found in several public collections, including The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Tate Modern in London, The Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Most recently he presented his new exhibition Afro Kismet at the 2017 Istanbul Biennial, Turkey, which has traveled to London, New York, and currently on view in L.A. Since 2008 Wilson has been a member of the Board of Trustees at the Whitney Museum of American Art. He represented the U.S. at the Cairo Biennale (1992) and Venice Biennale (2003). His many accolades include the prestigious MacArthur Foundation's "Genius" Grant (1999); the Skowhegan Medal for Sculpture (2006) and the Ford Foundation's Art of Change fellowship (2018) and Brandeis University's Creative Arts Award (2019). He is a proud alumnus of the first graduating class of Purchase, and presented a critically acclaimed exhibition of his work at the Neuberger Museum of Art on campus in 2017.

Ina Mayhew is an acclaimed production designer who has designed more than 25 feature films, a dozen television shows, many commercials, music videos, industrial presentations, a movie musical, and permanent studio backlots. Along the way she has worked with many notable directors and producers such as Spike and Malcolm Lee, Ava DuVernay, and Tyler Perry; and she has designed for Netflix, Warner Brothers, MGM, Lionsgate, New Line, 40 Acres and A Mule, BET, HBO, MTV, Universal, PBS, and Island Pictures.

Most recently, she designed the soon-to-air Dolly Parton Heartstrings on Netflix, an 8-episode anthology, due to air in November. In production now, Ina is currently working on her third season of Queen Sugar in New Orleans, airing on Oprah Winfrey's Network, and Executive Produced by Ava DuVernay. She designed the Emmy Award-nominated TV movie Christmas of Many Colors for Dolly Parton and NBC; the TV series Second Generation Wayans and two seasons of The Quad on BET; The Renee Fleming Christmas Special for PBS; the dark MTV series Teen Wolf, and the comedy film Barbershop: In the Cut. She also recently designed a music video, directed by DuVernay and starring Beyonce and Jay-Z, for their song "Family Feud."

Ina currently sits as a voting member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. She has been teaching an annual class in Production Design at Purchase College since 2005, as her schedule permits.

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