Broadcast Journalist Judy Woodruff to Receive Honorary Degree from Montclair State University

The Board of Trustees at Montclair State University has named legendary broadcast journalist Judy Woodruff as an honorary degree recipient for its January 2019 Graduate School Commencement ceremony.

The anchor and managing editor of PBS NewsHour will address the graduating class and receive an honorary Doctor of Letters degree on Saturday, January 19 at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center.

“Judy Woodruff is one of the very important journalists of our time,” says Montclair State University President Susan A. Cole. “Her work has touched on the critical issues affecting our nation and the world, and she has used her considerable skills to extract truth from the powerful, to chronicle stories of major importance, and to elicit the voice of communities that have often been unheard. A trailblazer for women in media, she has led by example, with integrity, and demonstrating the profession’s best practices. Judy Woodruff is an ideal model for our students of how one makes one’s work meaningful in the world. The University community is grateful for her participation in our Graduate School Commencement and honored to have her with us.”

“I am thrilled to be joining the graduate students of Montclair State as they’re recognized for their accomplishments at this remarkable institution of higher learning and as they head out to make a difference in the world,” says Woodruff.

Reporting and anchoring at flagship networks NBC, CNN and PBS, Woodruff has covered national politics in a decorated journalism career spanning more than four decades.

At PBS from 1983 to 1993, she was the chief Washington correspondent for the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. From 1984 – 1990, she also anchored PBS’ award-winning documentary series, Frontline with Judy Woodruff. Moving to CNN in 1993, she served as anchor and senior correspondent for 12 years; among other duties, she anchored the weekday program Inside Politics. She returned to the NewsHour in 2007, and in 2013, she and the late Gwen Ifill were named the first two women to co-anchor a national news broadcast.

In 2011, Woodruff was the anchor and reporter for the PBS documentary Nancy Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime and in 2007, she completed an extensive project on the views of young Americans, titled Generation Next: Speak Up. Be Heard.

During her career, she has been the recipient of numerous accolades, including, among the others, the Radcliffe Medal, the Poynter Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Journalism, the Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award from the Committee to Protect Journalists and the Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism from Arizona State University.

Woodruff is a founding co-chair of the International Women’s Media Foundation, an organization dedicated to promoting and encouraging women in journalism and communication industries worldwide. She serves on the boards of trustees of the Freedom Forum, The Duke Endowment and the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and is a director of Public Radio International and the National Association to End Homelessness. She is a former member of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, a former director of the National Museum of American History and a former trustee of the Urban Institute.

The Graduate School Commencement ceremony will begin at noon on January 19, 2019. Montclair State University has also set the dates for its May Graduate School Commencement ceremony, which will be held Tuesday, May 21, 2019, and its Undergraduate Commencement ceremony, which will be held Friday, May 24. The Graduate School Commencement ceremony is at NJPAC and Undergraduate Commencement is at Prudential Center in Newark.

For more information, visit montclair.edu/commencement.

The event will be live-streamed on our website.