Published: May 2008
On May 19, at the University’s 132nd Commencement, David McCullough addressed some 3,000 graduating students, their parents, and members of the University community. “Make the love of learning central to your life. What a difference it can mean,” McCullough declared. “If your experience is anything like mine, the books that will mean the most to you, books that will change your life, are still to come.”
One of America’s preeminent historians, McCullough holds a bachelor’s degree from Yale University, where he studied with John Hersey, Robert Penn Warren, Brendan Gill, and Thornton Wilder. He worked for a dozen years as a writer and editor for the U.S. Information Agency, Sports Illustrated, and American Heritage. His first full-length history, The Johnstown Flood (Simon & Schuster, 1968), was called a “first-rate example of the documentary method” by the New Yorker. Since then he has written books on the Brooklyn Bridge, the Panama Canal, Theodore Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and John Adams, among others. He has won two Pulitzer Prizes, two National Book Awards, and more than 80 other literary awards. In 2006, the nation’s highest civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, was conferred on McCullough “for his lifelong efforts to document the people, places, and events that have shaped America.”
@BC presents McCullough’s May 19 Commencement address, delivered in Alumni Stadium.
