Honored Guests Commencement 2019

Our honored guests for the Cambridge College 47th Commencement Exercises are:

Commencement Speaker

Jackie Bezos, President and Co-Founder, Bezos Family Foundation

Jackie Bezos is president and co-founder of the Bezos Family Foundation. Learning from birth through high school is fundamental to the Foundation’s mission.

For over 15 years, its programs and grant partnerships have strengthened educational opportunities for everyone, regardless of economic circumstances, and cultivated learning as a lifelong process that begins at birth.

Jackie Bezos believes young people are co-creators in powerful solutions. Through her work at the helm of the Bezos Family Foundation, she sees kids accomplish extraordinary feats and catalyze change when offered the resources and support.

She’s been making waves of positive change for many years, but her most prized title is not president of the Bezos Family Foundation – a position she assumed from her husband Mike – but “Captain of Creating Chaos” with her 11 grandchildren – her own early learning Petri dish.

Jackie serves on the board of directors for a number of organizations, including Robin Hood, the American Museum of Natural History, the Institute of Learning and Brain Sciences, and Character Lab.  She also serves as an advisor to TED-Ed and on the advisory board of Global Nomads Group.

Honorary Degree Recipient

U.S. Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley

In November 2018, Ayanna Pressley was elected to represent Massachusetts’ 7th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives, making her the first woman of color to be elected to Congress from Massachusetts. Raised in Chicago as the only child of an activist mother who instilled in her the value of civic participation, Pressley worked for 14 years as a senior aide to Congressman Joseph P. Kennedy II and later Senator John Kerry. In 2009, she won election to the Boston City Council, marking the first time a woman of color was elected to the council in its 100-year history. She led the establishment of the Committee on Healthy Women, Families, and Communities; championed the introduction of a comprehensive sexual health curriculum in Boston Public Schools; and convened the first “listening-only” hearing in the council’s history, focused on gun violence and trauma.