Howard Fineman will speak and receive an honorary degree on Sunday, May 20, 2018, at Gettysburg College’s 183rd Commencement ceremony. The 11 a.m. ceremony will take place—rain or shine—on Beachem Portico on the north side of Pennsylvania Hall.
Fineman is a reporter and writer for NBCNews.com, an on-air analyst for NBC News and MSNBC, an adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication, and the author of a best-selling book of political history, The Thirteen American Arguments: Enduring Debates That Define and Inspire Our Country.
He was previously the Global Editorial Director for the Huffington Post. Before that, he was Newsweek’s chief political correspondent, senior editor, and deputy Washington, D.C. bureau chief. Fineman also regularly appears on MSNBC's "Hardball with Chris Matthews,” "Morning Joe," other MSNBC shows and on NBC’s "Today,” and has been published by The New York Times, The Washington Post and The New Republic.
During the course of his award-winning career, Fineman has interviewed every president and major presidential candidate since 1988. He has reported from and about 49 of 50 states and traveled to 50 countries. He has lectured at more than 40 colleges and universities.
A native of Pittsburgh, Fineman graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Colgate University and earned an M.S. in journalism from Columbia University and a J.D. from the University of Louisville. He has received several awards for his work, including National Magazine, American Bar Association and Sigma Delta Chi (journalism fraternity) awards; the Alumni Award from the Columbia Journalism School; and an honorary doctorate in 2011 from Colgate University. In May 2013, the University of Louisville awarded him an honorary doctorate.
Fineman has been a featured speaker on campus several times before. Most notably, he gave the 2009 Blavatt lecture, was part of a panel discussion with the Eisenhower Institute in 2012, and participated in a small group discussion with Chris Matthews about the presidential election in 2016.
He is married to Amy L. Nathan, a lawyer and policy advisor at the Federal Communications Commission. They have two grown children and reside in Washington, DC.
For more information about Commencement, please refer to the Commencement website. It will be updated frequently as Commencement weekend approaches.