2014 Commencement Address: Jon Favreau \u2703

Jon Favreau \u2703, former director of speechwriting for President Barack Obama and co-founder of Fenway Strategies, will receive an honorary degree from the College of the Holy Cross and address this year\u27s graduates during the College\u27s Commencement ceremonies on Friday, May 23 at 10:30 a.m. on the campus. Favreau will return to the Holy Cross Commencement stage, where he delivered the Valedictory Address for his class in 2003. The North Reading, Mass., native was director of speechwriting for President Obama from the beginning of his term as a United States Senator through early 2013. Prior to that, Favreau served as deputy director of speechwriting for John Kerry during his 2004 presidential campaign. A political science major at Holy Cross, Favreau was a member of the College Honors Program and a Dana Scholar; he participated as a junior in the College\u27s Washington Semester Program, working in the office of then U.S. Senator Kerry. His thesis, titled The Politics of Abandonment: White Working Class Defection from the Democratic Party, which was based in part on his work in Washington, was awarded the Maurizio Vannicelli Prize. While at Holy Cross, Favreau was director of the Welfare Solidarity Project of Worcester and a participant in the student-staffed Oncology Volunteer Effort at UMASS Memorial Hospital (M.O.V.E.) He also served as editor of the opinion section of The Crusader student newspaper. After leaving the White House, he co-founded Fenway Strategies, a communications and speechwriting firm. In the spring of 2013, Favreau served as a fellow at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics, teaching a weekly seminar, titled Storytelling in the Age of Sound Bites. Featured in TIME magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World and in GQ\u27s 50 Most Powerful People in D.C., he is also a columnist for The Daily Beast.https://crossworks.holycross.edu/commence_address/1000/thumbnail.jp