The New Yorker editor announced as 2014 commencement speaker

On Sunday, May 11th, David Remnick will take the stand as the commencement speaker for the Syracuse University and SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry class of 2014 graduation ceremony. Remnick, editor of The New Yorker and a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, has been selected by a committee of students, staff, faculty, alumni and others who are involved with Syracuse University.

Chancellor Kent Syverud said Remnick is an insightful storyteller when it comes to world events, and the people who shape them. “He excels at recognizing a great story and knowing how to tell it well,” Syverud said of Remnick’s talents as a journalist and author in a March 31 SU News release.

Remnick has made his career in news, working for the Washington Post as a Moscow correspondent six years after graduating from Princeton University. In 1992, he joined The New Yorker as a staff writer and worked his way up to editor in 1998. Remnick has written over 100 pieces for the magazine and was named Advertising Age’s Editor of the Year in 2000.

The author of several books, Remnick’s most recent is The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama. His book Lenin’s Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1994.

Remnick is also father of three children, Alex, Noah and Natasha, and married to New York Times journalist Esther Fein. Remnick last visited SU to dedicate the Bill Glavin Magazine Lab at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications in 2008.

Remnick will be awarded an honorary degree — Doctor of Humane Letters — at the commencement ceremony.

“His insatiable curiosity, excellence at his craft and integrity are qualities we work to cultivate in all of our students,” Syverud said of Remnick in the release. “I know the message he will share will make this momentous day even more special for them.”