John Kerry Is Northeastern’s 2016 Commencement Speaker

John Kerry Photo by Center For American Progress via Flickr/Creative Commons

Beacon Hill resident and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will deliver North­eastern University’s 2016 com­mence­ment address at TD Garden, where he accepted the Democratic Party’s nomination 12 years earlier.

NU President Joseph Auon made the announcement on Twitter Monday evening.

Proud to announce that #Northeastern's 2016 Commencement speaker is Secretary of State @JohnKerry.

— President Aoun (@PresidentAoun) February 23, 2016

.@PresidentAoun Looking forward to heading back to Boston to address next generation of leaders @Northeastern. #GoNU https://t.co/1NJpR8S4Cs

— John Kerry (@JohnKerry) February 23, 2016

“John Kerry and North­eastern share a common bond: We are deeply rooted in Mass­a­chu­setts yet fully engaged with the global com­mu­nity,” Aoun said in a release. “Through a life­long com­mit­ment to public ser­vice, Sec­re­tary Kerry has dis­tin­guished him­self as one of the truly con­se­quen­tial statesmen of his gen­er­a­tion. His impact on the world serves as a pow­erful example for our graduates.”

Upon earning his law degree from Boston College in 1976, Kerry worked in the Middlesex County District Attorney’s office before being elected lieutenant governor of Massachusetts in 1982. In 1984, he was elected to the U.S. Senate and served for nearly three decades before President Barack Obama appointed him to his cabinet in February 2013. He made an unsuccessful run at the White House in 2004.

“I am grateful that Pres­i­dent Aoun has invited me to address the grad­u­ating class at North­eastern Uni­ver­sity, which is no longer con­fined to Hunt­ington Avenue but oper­ating a global campus,” Kerry said. “Edu­ca­tion today is a global enter­prise, and we’re living in a time when jobs and oppor­tu­ni­ties take us all over the world. I look for­ward to returning to Massachusetts—and my hometown—to address the senior class and other grad­u­ates on this impor­tant and very happy occasion.”

Kerry, who received his bachelor’s degree from Yale, previously gave a commencement address to Northeastern’s graduate students in 2000.