Dylan Ratigan '94, the opinionated host of his own popular daytime talk show on MSNBC, will be the featured speaker at Union’s 218th Commencement, College officials announced today.
Approximately 537 students in the Class of 2012 will receive degrees during the ceremony, scheduled for 10 a.m. Sunday, June 10, on Hull Plaza.
Ratigan, who graduated from Union with a bachelor of arts in political science, will receive an honorary doctor of humane letters.
Ratigan grew up in Saranac Lake, N.Y. While at Union, he rowed crew and contributed to Concordiensis, the campus newspaper. He began his journalism career at the Portsmouth Herald in New Hampshire.
A veteran journalist, Ratigan was the former global managing editor for corporate finance at Bloomberg News. He has developed more than half a dozen broadcast and new media properties, including CNBC’s “Fast Money” and “Closing Bell.” Outraged over the government’s handling of the 2008 financial crisis, he left as host of “Fast Money” in 2009.
Since 2009, he has hosted “The Dylan Ratigan Show,” which airs weekdays at 4 p.m. on MSNBC.
Ratigan’s first book, Greedy Bastards: How We Can Stop Corporate Communists, Banksters, and Other Vampires from Sucking America Dry, published in January, was a New York Times bestseller.
“We are honored to have Dylan Ratigan return to Union as our commencement speaker this year,” said College President Stephen C. Ainlay. “He has established himself as a lucid and powerful commentator on the economic challenges facing our country. I’m sure our students will find him both informative and thought-provoking.”
Also at Commencement, the College will award an honorary doctor of laws degree to G. Bingham Powell, Jr., president of the American Political Science Association. Powell, the Marie C. and Joseph C. Wilson Professor of Political Science at the University of Rochester, was nominated by Cliff Brown, professor of political science at Union.
The class valedictorian is Mark Chaskes, a biology and economics major in the Leadership in Medicine program from Williamsville, N.Y. The salutatorian is Erin Delman, a geology and Latin American studies major from Rolling Hills, Calif.