This story was originally produced by the Valley News. NHPR is republishing it in partnership with the Granite State News Collaborative.
Multi-faceted entertainer Rachel Dratch with deliver Dartmouth College’s commencement address, the college announced Tuesday.
Dratch, a 1988 Dartmouth graduate, is perhaps best known for her years in the cast of “Saturday Night Live,” alongside Fred Armisen, Jimmy Fallon, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler.
As a sophomore at Dartmouth, Dratch joined a new improv group, Said and Done, and it led her into a career in sketch comedy, first at Second City, in Chicago, then at “SNL” from 1999 to 2006.
“I felt like, ‘Oh my God, these are my people,’ ” Dratch said at an event tied to the reopening last year of the Hopkins Center for the Arts, where she serves on the board of advisors.
In giving the commencement address, Dratch will join a long roster of prominent media and entertainment figures invited to speak to graduates.
Fred Rogers (2002), Shonda Rhimes (2014), Jake Tapper (2017), Mindy Kaling (2018), and Phil Lord and Chris Miller (2023), are among the Dartmouth graduates to address commencement in recent decades. Other media-famous speakers include New York Times columnist David Brooks (2015) and comedian Conan O’Brien (2011).
Tennis star Roger Federer’s graduation speech to Dartmouth’s Class of 2024 went viral. A video of the speech on the college’s YouTube channel has been viewed more than 3 million times.
The year’s commencement is scheduled for Sunday, June 14.
