Ithaca College graduation to include speakers from different generations

ITHACA, N.Y. — Ithaca College says its upcoming graduation ceremony will include speakers from the Classes of 2023 and 1980, along with an honorary-degree recipient who was originally scheduled to graduate in 1994.

Four-time Tony Award-winning Broadway producer Larry Hirschhorn will deliver the main address at Ithaca College’s 128th commencement ceremony on May 21, the college announced April 18.

In addition, graduating senior Francesca Infante-Meehan will speak on behalf of the Class of 2023. 

Ithaca College will also recognize civil-rights activist and award-winning filmmaker Loki Mulholland with an honorary degree at the ceremony, which is scheduled for 10 a.m. that day in Glazer Arena of the Athletics and Events Center.

“We look forward to celebrating the Class of 2023 and honoring our distinguished guests,” Ithaca College President La Jerne Terry Cornish said in the school’s news release. “As our graduates prepare to begin this next exciting chapter in their lives, I am sure that they will draw inspiration and encouragement from the experiences of our speakers.”

Hirschhorn

Hirschhorn earned his bachelor’s degree in acting from Ithaca College in 1980 and began his professional career on stage. He later switched to producing after getting his master’s degree from New York University in educational theatre, Ithaca College said.

He was the founder/artistic director of Melting Pot Theatre Company, which first brought “Miss Evers’ Boys,” “Woody Sez,” and “Cobb” to New York City. He has since gone on to produce some of the most awarded plays and musicals on Broadway, Off-Broadway, on national tours, and in London, the college said.

He is currently on the producing teams of “Hadestown,” which won the 2019 Tony Award for Best Musical; and the revival of “The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window,” starring Oscar Isaac and Rachel Brosnahan. His two productions currently in development include musical stage versions of the films “Benny & Joon” and “The Flamingo Kid.” Additionally, he is the producer of the animated short film “A Cow in the Sky,” featuring rap artist Aminé, which will have its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in June.

Hirschhorn has stayed actively involved with Ithaca College’s theatre program throughout his career, the school noted. He co-chaired the fundraising drive for the 2009 renovation of Dillingham Center for the Performing Arts, where he also established a theatre library; regularly participates in field studies week in New York City, which sees Ithaca College students travel to the Big Apple to meet with theatre alumni; and endowed an annual scholarship for theatre majors. 

He was honored by the Ithaca College Alumni Association in 2016 with the Professional Achievement Award, which recognizes alumni who have achieved national, regional, or local distinction in their professions, who acknowledge the importance of their Ithaca College education in reaching their career goals, and who have demonstrated long-standing loyalty to the college.

Infante-Meehan

Infante-Meehan will earn a bachelor’s degree in theatre arts management and a bachelor’s degree in business administration with a concentration in marketing. 

Besides her classroom work, her on-campus activities included serving as the marketing manager for the Center for Theatre and Dance; student assistant with the Marketing & Creative Group in the Division of Marketing and Enrollment Strategy; director of communications for the Class of 2023; and GREEN Tour leader for the Jumpstart program. 

In the local community, Infante-Meehan has worked with the Cherry Artspace as a production associate and with the activist nonprofit Civic Ensemble as the digital media and marketing intern for the production “Streets Like This,” where she worked “intimately” with the homeless population in Ithaca to help create a show based on their first-hand experiences in the streets, the school said.

Infante-Meehan spent the spring of her junior year studying at the Ithaca College London Center. After interning at J.P. Morgan last summer in the Securities Services Leadership Program, she will be returning to the company to work as a full-time analyst after graduation.

Mulholland

Ithaca College will award Emmy-winning filmmaker and author Loki Mulholland an honorary Doctor of Letters degree. 

A civil-rights activist in the “mold of his celebrated mother,” Joan Trumpauer Mulholland, he told her story in the illustrated children’s book “She Stood for Freedom” — which was nominated for the 2017 Amelia Bloomer Award — and film “An Ordinary Hero,” which appeared on PBS. 

His other notable, award-winning documentaries include “After Selma”; “The Evers,” on Showtime; and “The Uncomfortable Truth,” on Amazon Prime, which dives into the 400-year history of institutional racism in America.

Mulholland founded and serves as executive director of the Joan Trumpauer Mulholland Foundation, which takes a multi-faceted approach to educating people in anti-racism, and he regularly speaks around the country on issues of race and social justice. 

He joined his mother for a Day of Learning series event at Ithaca College last fall, “Students as Advocates and Change Agents,” advising students about how they can have an impact on issues of injustice.

Mulholland studied cinema and photography in the Roy H. Park School of Communications and would have graduated from the college in 1994 had he “not gotten stuck in Russia for a short time after studying and working abroad, consequently missing his final year,” the school said. 

Following his campus visit last fall, administrators in the Park School determined from his transcripts, his business degree from the University of Phoenix, and credit for his professional film work that he had ultimately qualified for his Ithaca undergraduate degree, which he was awarded in December 2022.