Pratt Institute will celebrate its 136th Commencement on Tuesday, May 20, with graduating students gathering at the iconic Radio City Music Hall in Manhattan to receive their degrees. The Institute will celebrate the accomplishments of nearly 1,400 graduating students, conferring degrees during a ceremony starting at 10 AM.
This year, acclaimed poet and cultural critic Claudia Rankine will deliver the Commencement address and receive an honorary degree, while esteemed alumni Annabelle Selldorf, BArch ’85, renowned architect, and Stefan Sagmeister, MFA Communications Design ’98, visionary designer and typographer, will also receive honorary degrees.
Claudia Rankine’s honorary degree will be conferred in recognition of her extraordinary achievements as a poet, playwright, essayist, and educator. Her fearless body of work—spanning poetry, plays, essays, and video collaborations—explores themes of race, power, and class with clarity and urgency. A former chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and a MacArthur “Genius” Fellow, Rankine is the author of Citizen: An American Lyric, co-founder of The Racial Imaginary Institute, and a professor at NYU’s Creative Writing Program.
Annabelle Selldorf’s honorary degree will be conferred in recognition of her distinguished career as an architect. A graduate of Pratt’s undergraduate architecture program, Selldorf is the principal of Selldorf Architects, the internationally acclaimed New York-based firm known for its humanist approach to design. With a portfolio that includes museums, galleries, and public buildings around the world, Selldorf is a Fellow of the AIA, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the recipient of the AIA New York Medal of Honor.
Stefan Sagmeister’s honorary degree will be conferred in recognition of his groundbreaking achievements as a designer and typographer. A graduate of Pratt’s School of Design, Sagmeister is a two-time Grammy winner whose clients have included The Rolling Stones, HBO, and the Guggenheim Museum. He is known for exploring themes like happiness and beauty through design. His exhibition The Happy Show became the most visited graphic design exhibition in history, and his TED Talks have made him one of the most invited speakers in TED history.