HWS News
14 May 2021 • Faculty Jimnez to Deliver Baccalaureate Address
Associate Professor Emerita of Africana Studies Marilyn Jiménez P’12 will deliver the Baccalaureate address to the Classes of 2021.
The Baccalaureate tradition creates space for the graduating classes, their families and members of the HWS community to come together for prayer, gratitude and music during Commencement weekend. The event will take place on Saturday, May 15 at 1:30 p.m. on the Quad and will also be available via livestream.
This year’s Baccalaureate speaker is Associate Professor Emerita of Africana Studies Marilyn Jiménez P’12. Jiménez was born in Cuba and emigrated to the United States with her parents shortly before the Cuban Revolution. She joined the Colleges’ faculty in 1984 and retired in 2019. During her tenure, she taught a range of courses in the Colleges’ Africana Studies and Media & Society departments, developing courses including “Ghettoscapes,” “Growing Up Black,” “The Experience of Race,” “The Latino (LatinX) Experience,” “Latin American Cinema,” “Black Film,” “Black Images/White Myths” and “Third World Women’s Texts.” She chaired academic programs and committees, and mentored students in media arts to success at film festivals and careers in Hollywood.
Her scholarship has appeared in journals including West Virginia University Philological Papers and Critical Exchange as well as many reviews in World Literature Today. Jiménez — who holds a B.A. from Barnard College and M.A. and Ph.D. from Columbia University in comparative literature — earned the HWS Faculty Award for Service in 2001 for her contributions to the curriculum, service learning in Geneva and the vibrancy of the campus community.
Her Baccalaureate Address is titled “Spiritual Fusion.”
In addition to the Baccalaureate address, every year, three students from the graduating Classes read a text that has resonated with them through their academic and personal journeys at the Colleges. This year’s speakers include Edith Rose Falk ’21, Jane Anne Lawrence ’21 and Meg Quint ’21. Falk, an English and political science double major, has served as a student worker in the Office for Spiritual Engagement. She also served as HWS Hillel president for two years. Lawrence is a member of St. John’s Chapel Vestry and the vice president of the HWS chapter of Beautiful Minds. She will receive her B.A. in psychological science. Biochemistry major Quint has served on the Hillel Board as the LGBTQ+ Representative and Sustainability Coordinator.
