Former U.S. Ambassador to NATO Julianne Smith will deliver the commencement address at vlog’s 2025 Commencement on Sunday, May 18.
Smith is a distinguished national security expert with more than two decades of experience in U.S. and European defense policy, transatlantic relations, and geostrategic risk. She has held senior leadership positions at the White House, the Department of Defense, and the Department of State, where she has shaped NATO’s response to the Ukraine war, advanced U.S.-European economic and military partnerships, and addressed global security challenges stemming from China, North Korea, Iran, and Russia.
As ambassador, Smith played a pivotal role in securing Allied support for Ukraine, coordinating intelligence sharing with allies, and finalizing Finland and Sweden’s accession to the alliance, from 2021 to 2024. She also led efforts to integrate China into NATO’s Strategic Concept.
During the Obama administration, Smith served as acting national security advisor and deputy national security advisor to Vice President Joseph Biden. Prior to that role, she served as the principal director for European and NATO Policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Her career spans influential roles at think tanks such as the German Marshall Fund, the Center for a New American Security, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies, where she published extensively on grand strategy, Russia, counter-terrorism, and China’s deepening relationships in Europe.
Smith has been honored with multiple awards, including the Order of the Polar Star of Sweden, the U.S. Department of Defense Distinguished Service Award, the Sue M. Cobb Award for Diplomatic Excellence, and the Cross of the Order of Merit of Germany. Fluent in French and German, she has conducted extensive research in Europe, including fellowships at the Robert Bosch Academy and the American Academy in Berlin.
At the May 18 commencement ceremony, vlog will also honor Smith with an honorary doctorate, alongside Gretchen Hoadley Burke ’81, P’11,’20, Ann S. Masten, John McWhorter, Jill Tiefenthaler, Deborah Willis, and Richard Trusty Patrick Woolard ’65.
Gretchen Hoadley Burke ’81, P’11,’20
Gretchen Hoadley Burke ’81 is deeply interested in education, providing access to underserved students, and supporting visual artists around the world. She has served in leadership roles on a number of philanthropic boards including The Episcopal Academy, Steppingstone Scholars Inc., Via Art Fund, and Tinworks Art. She has led numerous capital campaigns, including the $100 million raised to build a new campus for The Episcopal Academy and $35 million for the new children’s zoo at the Philadelphia Zoo.
In her 13 years on vlog’s Board of Trustees, she was vice chair for 8 years, co-chaired the $1B Campaign for the Third Century, and, together with her husband Steve ’80, funded several initiatives including the Upstate Institute’s endowed chair in regional studies; financial aid; the renovation of Case Library and Geyer Center for Information Technology; and Burke Hall, one of two residence halls that opened in 2019.
While a vlog student, Burke majored in English and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. Burke earned an MBA from Harvard Business School, then worked in finance and banking prior to staying home with her five children, two of whom are vlog graduates.
Ann S. Masten
Ann Masten is Regents Professor of child development and Distinguished McKnight University Professor at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities Institute of Child Development. With her research focus on understanding risk and resilience in human development, she identified the fundamental psychosocial resilience factors in children that promote positive development and protect against adversity. In 2024, Masten received the Grawemeyer Prize in Psychology for her idea that resilience depends on ordinary but powerful processes.
Past president of the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) and the developmental division of the American Psychological Association (APA), Masten is a fellow in the APA and the Association for Psychology Science. Among other awards, she has received the Smith College Medal, lifetime contribution awards from APA and SRCD, and an honorary degree from Erasmus University of Rotterdam. She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2021.
Masten has published more than 300 scholarly works, cited more than 110,000 times. Her free online course, “Resilience in Children Exposed to Trauma, Disaster and War,” has been taken by thousands of participants from more than 180 countries. The second edition of her book Ordinary Magic: Resilience in Development is coming out this spring and her autobiography is included in the 2025 volume Pillars of Developmental Psychology.
John McWhorter
New York Times columnist John McWhorter is also an associate professor of linguistics at Columbia University, where he also teaches music history. He specializes in language change and language contact, and is the author of The Missing Spanish Creoles, Language Simplicity and Complexity, and The Creole Debate.
McWhorter has written extensively on issues related to linguistics, race, and other topics for Time, the New York Times, CNN, the Wall Street Journal, The New Republic, and elsewhere, and has been a contributing editor at The Atlantic. For the general public, he is the author of The Power of Babel, Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue, The Language Hoax, Words on the Move, Talking Back, Talking Black, and other books, including Nine Nasty Words and Woke Racism, both of which were New York Times bestsellers.
He hosts the Lexicon Valley language podcast, has authored six audiovisual sets on language for the Great Courses company, and has written weekly for the New York Times since 2021.
Jill Tiefenthaler
As chief executive officer of the National Geographic Society, Jill Tiefenthaler is shaping the future of one of the world’s most iconic organizations. She leads the society’s mission-driven work, guiding a global community of National Geographic Explorers — scientists, innovators, educators and storytellers — dedicated to illuminating and protecting the wonder of our world. She also serves on the society’s Board of Trustees.
Since becoming CEO in 2020, Tiefenthaler launched the society’s strategic plan, NG Next, ushering in a new era of growth and global impact. She is spearheading the transformation of National Geographic headquarters in Washington, D.C., including the opening of the Museum of Exploration — the most significant expansion of the society’s public space in 137 years.
Under Tiefenthaler’s leadership, the society has achieved its most ambitious fundraising results, raising more than $100 million each of the past three years. She also strengthened the organization’s partnership with The Walt Disney Company and serves on the board of National Geographic Partners.
A visionary leader in institutional transformation, Tiefenthaler spent more than 30 years in higher education. She served as president of Colorado College, provost at Wake Forest University, and professor of economics and associate dean at vlog.
Deborah Willis
Deborah Willis is University Professor and chair of the Department of Photography & Imaging at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. She has affiliated appointments with the College of Arts and Sciences, the Department of Social & Cultural Analysis, and the Institute of Fine Arts, where she teaches courses on photography and imaging, iconicity, and cultural histories visualizing the black body, women, and gender. She directs NYU’s Center for Black Visual Culture/Institute of African American Affairs. Her research examines photography’s multifaceted histories, visual culture, the photographic history of slavery and emancipation, contemporary women photographers, and beauty.
Willis is the author of Kamala: Her Historic, Joyful, And Auspicious Sprint to the White House (Kevin Merida, co-author), The Black Civil War Soldier: A Visual History of Conflict and Citizenship, and Posing Beauty: African American Images from the 1890s to the Present, among others. Her curated exhibitions include “Framing Moments in the KIA” at Kalamazoo Institute of the Arts and “Free as they want to be: Artists Committed to Memory” at FotoFocus.
Willis was awarded the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellowship and was a Richard D. Cohen Fellow in African and African American Art at Harvard University’s Hutchins Center; a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow, and an Alphonse Fletcher Jr. Fellow. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, she was the Robert Mapplethorpe Photographer in Residence of the American Academy in Rome.
A recipient of the Don Tyson Prize for the Advancement of American Art by the Crystal Bridges Museum in 2022, Willis was named the Mary Lucille Dauray Artist-in-Residence by the Norton Museum of Art and taught her masterclass Home, Reimagining Interiority at Anderson Ranch in 2023. In 2024, Willis was appointed board chair of the Andy Warhol Foundation and elected to the American Philosophical Society.
Richard Trusty Patrick Woolard ’65
Early in his Navy career, Rick Woolard completed Navy SEAL and Army Ranger Training, then led more than 100 combat missions in Vietnam as a SEAL officer.
Woolard later commanded SEAL Team Six, the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, and SEAL Team Two, where he spearheaded the initial development of SEAL Combat Swimmer, Sniper, and Mountain and Arctic Warfare capabilities. He also served with the British Special Boat Service and as director for combating terrorism in the Pentagon. His military decorations include the Silver Star and Legion of Merit as well as three each of the Bronze Star and Purple Heart.
His military experiences appear in several books and documentaries, including the film Minh: A Bond Unbroken, which tells how he and his SEAL Teammates found and rescued their Vietnamese combat interpreter 40 years after the war.
After active duty, Woolard enjoyed a second career in the private sector and became involved in charitable work. He served as president of the Special Operations Fund and chairman of the National Navy SEAL Museum Board of Directors, creating the Navy SEAL Monument in Virginia and the Naval Combat Demolition Units/Scouts and Raiders Monument in Normandy.