Ai-jen Poo—an activist and social innovator whose groundbreaking leadership on domestic workers’ rights and family care advocacy earned her the MacArthur “genius” grant—delivered the address at Smith College’s Commencement ceremony on Sunday, May 19, 2019. 

Poo received an honorary degree at Commencement. Honorary degrees were also awarded to Elizabeth Alexander, poet, scholar, educator, memoirist, and president of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; Drew Gilpin Faust, president emerita and Arthur Kingsley Porter University Professor at Harvard University; Yvonne Freccero, advocate for people who are homeless in Hampshire County; and Nicola “Niki” Sauvage Tsongas ’68, former congresswoman representing the 3rd District of Massachusetts.