Jia Tolentino to present Graduate School of Design’s Class Day Address

Photo by Elena Mudd

Contact TDagenais@gsd.harvard.edu https://www.gsd.harvard.edu/

May 12, 2021 1 min read

Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design (GSD) has named writer and author Jia Tolentino as its 2021 Class Day speaker. Tolentino will address GSD’s Class of 2021 and their families during Harvard’s 2021 graduation exercises on Thursday, May 27. The talk is currently scheduled to begin approximately at 1:10 p.m. EST, to be streamed live on GSD’s YouTube channel.

Tolentino is a staff writer at the New Yorker and the author of the bestselling essay collection “Trick Mirror,” which has been translated into 11 languages. She was the recipient of a Whiting Award, a MacDowell Fellowship, and the 2020 Jeannette Haien Ballard Writer’s Prize. She graduated from the University of Virginia and received her M.F.A. in fiction from the University of Michigan. Tolentino currently lives in New York.

Tolentino follows previous Harvard GSD Class Day speakers Jenny Odell (2020), Teju Cole (2019), and Paola Antonelli (2018).

To see a full schedule of 2021 Class Day and Diploma Ceremony exercises, please visit the GSD’s Commencement webpage.