Knox College announced that Illinois Governor JB Pritzker will provide the Commencement address and receive an honorary degree at its Commencement exercises to be held in June. Pritzker will be joined by renowned Chicago artist and professor Theaster Gates and Knox College honorary trustee and longtime supporter Mary Kent Knight ‘60.
Pritzker is Illinois’ 43rd Governor, elected in 2018, and reelected in 2022, with the highest vote share for any Democratic governor in more than 60 years. Since taking office, he has accomplished one of the most ambitious policy agendas in the nation, including working with the Illinois General Assembly to overcome years of fiscal mismanagement by balancing the state budget every year, raising the minimum wage to a living wage, and investing in college readiness and access.
“It is an honor to welcome Illinois’ Governor, JB Pritzker, as our Commencement speaker this June,” said President C. Andrew McGadney. “His commitment to public service and educational access, as well as his understanding of the importance of difficult dialogues to make positive change, align directly with Knox’s mission and values. The Class of 2025 is sure to gain valuable insights from the leader of our state as they embark upon their journey as college graduates and engaged citizens.”
During Governor Pritzker’s tenure, he has worked with the General Assembly to overcome years of fiscal mismanagement by balancing the state budget every year, eliminating the state’s multi-billion-dollar bill backlog, improving pension funding, and achieving nine credit rating upgrades.
He raised the minimum wage to a living wage and made historic investments to infrastructure.
He has attracted massive new investments in electric vehicle manufacturing and quantum computing, helping Illinois’ economy reach over a trillion dollars. Illinois now ranks among the top five states for infrastructure and workforce development and has significantly improved its ranking among CNBC’s “Best States for Business.”
Illinois is now a top five state for college readiness and its high school graduation rate is at its highest level in more than a dozen years. University of Illinois has become a top ten public university in the U.S., and community college tuition is now free for working-class families. Governor Pritzker led nation-leading climate action and clean energy expansion, creating thousands of new jobs and doubling the state’s renewable energy production. With a focus on families and children, his leadership has led to an assault weapons ban, nation-leading reproductive rights protections, a ban on book bans, and guaranteed paid leave for every worker in the state.
Knox College also announced the 2025 Honorary Degree recipients, who will be honored during Commencement: renowned Chicago artist and professor Theaster Gates and Knox College honorary trustee and longtime supporter Mary Kent Knight.
Theaster Gates
A Chicago-based artist whose practice finds roots in conceptual formalism, sculpture, space theory, land art, and performance, Theaster Gates is trained in urban planning and within the tradition of Japanese ceramics His artistic philosophy is guided by the concepts of Shintoism, Buddhism and Animism – most notably honoring the “spirit within things.” Foundational to Gates’s practice is his custodianship and critical redeployment of culturally significant Black objects, archives, and spaces. Through the expansiveness of his approach as a thinker, maker, and builder, Gates extends the life of disappearing and bygone histories, places, traditions, and loved ones.
Gates has exhibited and performed around the world at dozens of locations including The LUMA Foundation, Arles, France (2023); The New Museum, New York, (2022); The Aichi Triennial, Tokoname (2022); The Serpentine Pavilion, London (2022); The Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK (2021); Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK (2013 and 2021); Tate Liverpool, UK (2020); Haus der Kunst, Munich (2020); Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2019); Palais de Tokyo Paris, France (2019); Sprengel Museum Hannover, Germany (2018); Kunstmuseum Basel, Switzerland (2018); National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., USA (2017); Art Gallery of Ontario, Canada (2016); Fondazione Prada, Milan, Italy (2016); Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria (2016); Punta della Dogana, Venice, Italy (2013); and dOCUMENTA (13), Kassel, Germany (2012).
Gates is the recipient of numerous awards and honorary degrees including the Isamu Noguchi Award (2023); National Buildings Museum Vincent Scully Prize (2023); Frederick Kiesler Prize for Architecture and the Arts (2022); an Honorary Fellowship from the Royal Institute of British Architects (2021); the World Economic Forum Crystal Award (2020); J.C. Nichols Prize for Visionaries in Urban Development (2018); Nasher Sculpture Prize (2018); Sprengel Museum Kurt Schwitters Prize (2017); and Artes Mundi 6 Prize (2015).
Mary Kent Knight ’60
Mary Kent Knight, a member of the Class of 1960, has had a rich and varied life, culminating in a life-long love of learning and dedicated service to her community and alma mater. Knight arrived at Knox, sight unseen, in 1956, after traveling by train from Glendale, California, to the Illinois prairie. During her time at Knox, she was a member and president of Delta Delta Delta sorority, wrote for The Knox Student newspaper, and was a member of 1958 national championship-winning women’s archery team that was inducted into the Knox-Lombard Athletics Hall of fame in 2002. Knight has been an Honorary Trustee since 2006. She graduated in 1960 with a degree in English literature and, after Knox, worked at the National Merit Scholarship Corporation and at Northern Trust Company, where she met her husband Robert G. Knight, Jr.
After starting a family, Knight became a homemaker and community volunteer, serving as the first female president of Illinois Elementary District 67 school board and on the boards of the YWCA of Lake Forest, the United Way of Lake Forest/Lake Bluff, and, most recently, on several committees at her retirement community. In the 1990s, she continued her education at Lake Forest College, where she received a master’s degree in liberal studies, followed by a Ph.D. of philosophy with a concentration in religious studies from Trinity Theological Seminary in 2001.
Upon receiving her doctorate, Knight began a personal quest to advance religious studies at Knox, endowing the Knight Distinguished Chair for the Study of Religion and Culture and funding the renovation of Galesburg’s Second Baptist Church into the HOPE (The House of Peace and Equity) Center, which serves as an inclusive space for all members of the Knox Community. Most recently, her love of the prairie, originating from her first trip to Knox in 1956, she gave a multi-million dollar gift to transform Green Oaks, Knox’s 700+ acre prairie campus with a new year-round living and learning center, major renovations to Schurr Hall, improvements in to outdoor recreational, teaching, and learning spaces.
The 2025 Knox College Commencement will be held on Sunday, June 8, at 10:00 a.m. on the South Lawn of Old Main on the Knox College campus. It is free and open to the public. More information can be found at www.knox.edu/commencement.
***Courtesy of Knox College***
