Tisch alum Molly Shannon, an award-winning actress and former star of “Saturday Night Live,” will address graduates and receive an honorary degree at NYU’s 2025 all-university commencement ceremony in May. New York Liberty CEO Keia Clarke and renowned physicist Walter Massey will join Shannon in receiving honorary degrees at the 192nd ceremony at Yankee Stadium.
Shannon, a three-time Primetime Emmy nominee and Screen Actors Guild Award recipient famous for her six-year run on SNL — which just celebrated its 50th anniversary — will receive a Doctor of Fine Arts Degree and deliver the university’s commencement address following a speech from President Linda Mills and faculty-led procession exercises.
“Motivated by innate talent, her NYU education and a personal history with loss and grief, Molly has developed an unparalleled ability to blend physical comedy with emotional depth,” Mills said in an announcement. “We are thrilled to celebrate her imprint on comedy and culture — particularly now, on the 50th anniversary of Saturday Night Live — and we know her story will inspire NYU graduates as they take on new and different roles.”
After graduating from the Tisch School of the Arts in 1987, Shannon began her run at SNL eight years later and gained immediate traction for her portrayal of Mary Katherine Gallagher — a fan-favorite character that Shannon first created for an NYU student production. Since leaving the show in 2001, Shannon has played roles on screen and as a voice actor in several films and television shows, including the award-winning “Only Murders in the Building,” “The White Lotus” and “A Promising Young Woman.”
Clarke, who graduated from the School of Professional Studies in 2006, will receive an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree. Before her promotion as CEO of the New York Liberty in 2020, Clarke served as the team’s chief operating officer for two seasons, where she has grown the Liberty’s fan base and helped earn the original franchise a WNBA championship in 2024. That year, NYU gifted Clarke a Distinguished Alumni Award for spearheading the team’s business and strategic planning.
Massey, who will receive a Doctor of Science Degree, is a senior adviser to the president at the University of Chicago and chair of the Giant Magellan Telescope Organization, where he is working with an international consortium to build the largest telescope on Earth. He is president emeritus and an alum of Morehouse College, where he served as the school’s head from 1995 to 2007, and later served as president of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago from 2010 to 2016.
Contact Aashna Miharia and Yezen Saadah at news@nyunews.com.
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