The following list includes recipients of honorary degrees since 2000.
Patricia Pogue Couper W'44, lifelong friend of Hamilton College
Paul B. Lieberstein '89, screenwriter and television producer
The Honorable Al Gore (Commencement Speaker)
John E. Sexton, President of New York University (Baccalaureate Speaker)
Peter Gelb, Metropolitan Opera General Manager
Dr. Martin S. Hirsch '60, AIDS/HIV and virology expert
Jeffrey Immelt P'10, chairman and CEO of General Electric (Commencement Speaker)
Christie Bell Vilsack K'72, executive director of The Iowa Initiative (Baccalaureate Speaker)
John Adams, co-founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council
Cathie Black, president of Hearst Magazines (Commencement Speaker)
Rebecca Chopp, president of Colgate University (Baccalaureate Speaker)
Stuart Scott, '61 and former chairman of its Board of Trustees
Taylor Branch, Author (Baccalaureate Speaker)
Henry M. Paulson, Jr., U.S. Treasury Secretary (Commencement Speaker)
Wendy Paulson, Environmentalist
Josiah "Josh" Simpson '72, Glass Artist
Sherwood Boehlert, former Congressman
Johnnetta B. Cole, President of Bennett College for Women (Baccalaureate Speaker)
Richard Haass, President of the Council on Foreign Relations (Commencement Speaker)
F. Eugene Romano '49, local businessman
Judith and Bill Moyers, Broadcast journalist (Baccalaureate Speaker)
Anna Quindlen, Author (Commencement speaker)
Joseph S. Nye, Jr. P'87, P'88, Government studies educator, administrator
Mary L. Bonauto '83, attorney, GLAAD
Peter John Gomes, professor and minister, Harvard University (Baccalaureate Speaker)
Francis Haas Musselman '50, attorney, life trustee of Hamilton College, former chairman of the board of Kirkland College
Kurt L. Schmoke, former mayor of Baltimore (Commencement speaker)
Joseph Volpe, general manager, The Metropolitan Opera
Kevin Kennedy '70, investment banker and former chairman of the Hamilton Board of Trustees
Margaret Miles, noted theological historian
Richard Nelson '72, playwright
Joseph Wilder, jazz trumpeter
Michael Castle '61, U.S. Representative and former Republican governor of Delaware (speaker only, HD was awarded earlier)
Rt. Rev. G.P. Mellick Belshaw, retired bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of NJ
David Grubin '65, writer, director and producer of documentary films
Shirley Ann Jackson, president of Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute
Jim Lehrer, journalist (speaker)
Bucky Pizzarelli, jazz guitarist
Joan Hinde Stewart, president of Hamilton College
Roger W. Straus Jr. '39, publisher
Stephen Carter, professor, author and moralist
Richard Hyman, jazz composer, arranger, conductor and organist
Paul Kellogg, artistic director of the Glimmerglass Opera and director of the NY City Opera
Thomas Meehan '51, Tony Award-winning Broadway writer
Christy Todd Whitman, EPA Administrator and former Republican governor of NJ (speaker)
John M. Driscoll '58, chairman of pediatrics, Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center
Paul Greengard '48, 2000 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine
Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, author, Harvard professor and education scholar
Jeffrey P. Mass '62, professor of history, Stanford University (posthumous)
Ralph Sutton, jazz pianist
Tom Vilsack '72, Democratic governor of Iowa (speaker)
Melinda Wagner '79, 1999 Pulitzer Prize-winning composer
Kenny Davern, jazz clarinetist
John D. Feerick, dean of the Fordham University Law School
Rev. D. Joan Martin, Assoc. Professor of Christian Ethics and Episcopal Divinity School
John Nichols '62, author
Sir Brian Urquhart, retired United Nations Undersecretary (speaker)
