Clarence Page, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, will receive an honorary degree and speak at Dickinson College’s commencement for the class of 2022 on May 22.  

Page is the winner of the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for commentary and works for the Chicago Tribune’s Washington Bureau as an editorial board member and columnist. He has written several essays for The News Hour with Jim Lehrer and served as a panelist on The McLaughlin Group, BET’s Lead Story, Hardball on MSNBC, and MediaBuzz on Fox News. 

Prior to that, he was a reporter and assistant city editor for the Chicago Tribune where he collaborated on a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative series on voter fraud in 1972. Named a 2021 Fellow of the Society by the Society of Professional Journalists, Page has received the 1980 Illinois UPI award, the 1976 Edward Scott Beck Award for overseas reporting, lifetime achievement awards from the National Society of Newspaper Columnists, the Chicago Headline Club, and the National Association of Black Journalists, and the National Press Foundation’s 2018 Kiplinger award for “distinguished contributions to journalism.” 

Page will receive the college’s Doctor of Public Affairs honorary degree. 

The college will also award three other honorary degrees and the Sam Rose ’58 & Julie Walters Prize for Global Environmental Activism: 

Judy Faulkner ’65, Doctor of Civic Engagement 

 After graduating from Dickinson with a degree in mathematics, Judy Faulkner founded the healthcare software company Epic in 1979. The company stores more than 250 million medical records and is utilized by 2,400 hospitals worldwide.  

Faulkner, who has been called “the most powerful woman in healthcare” by Forbes, built the 10,000-employee company without venture capital or going public. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Epic did not charge customers for pandemic-related services, for which it could have earned an additional $1 billion in revenue.  

Faulkner has signed The Giving Pledge, committing 99% of her assets to philanthropy. She says she did so “to help others with roots–food, warmth, shelter, healthcare, education–so they, too can have wings.” 

The Roots & Wings Foundation, established by Faulkner and her family, aids low-income children and their families, donating $15 million in 2020 to different organizations covering basic needs, early childhood, healthcare and human rights. 

Faulkner is currently a member of the National Academy of Medicine’s Leadership Roundtable and of the Aspen Health Strategy Group and serves on the University of Wisconsin Computer Science Board of Visitors. 

Laura Potter ’89, Doctor of Military Science 

 Potter currently serves as the U.S. Army Deputy Chief of Staff of Intelligence, a position she has held since 2020. A Distinguished Military Graduate of the Dickinson class of 1989, Potter has been deployed across locations in the U.S., Europe, Asia, and the Middle East since she earned her commission in the Military Intelligence corps in 1989.   

Prior to her current position as Deputy Chief of Staff, Potter served as the Commanding General of the United States Army Intelligence Center of Excellence and Fort Huachuca. 

In addition to her degree in Russian and Spanish from Dickinson, Potter holds a master’s degree from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, Center for Eurasian, Russian, and East European Studies and a master’s degree in national security and strategic studies from the Naval War College. 

For her service, she has received honors such as the Distinguished Service Medal, Defense Superior Service Medal, Legion of Merit, Bronze Star Medal, Defense Meritorious Service Medal, Air Force Commendation Medal, Army and Joint Staff Identification Badges, the Parachutist Badge, and the Estonian Ministry of Defense, Cross of Merit, 3rd Class. 

Barbara Jatta, Doctor of Arts 

Jatta is the director of the Vatican Museums, overseeing one of the most extensive and important collections of religious art in the world. Appointed by Pope Francis in 2017, she is the first woman to hold the position.  

When asked about the 200,000 artworks which she oversees, notably The Sistine Chapel, Raphael’s Transfiguration, Augusto di Prima Porta, and the Gallery of Geographical Maps, she said, “I feel the weight of that.” 

During her time with the Vatican Museums, Jatta has extended viewing hours, maximized the accessibility of exhibits, and blended famous artwork with performance media, ushering in a new era for the museums.  

Prior to her appointment as director, Jatta served the Vatican Museums as the director of the Cabinet of Prints and the curator of prints at the Vatican Apostolic Library. During this time, she modernized the Vatican’s catalogue of artistic objects, transforming it into one of the most technologically advanced libraries in the world. From 1996 to 2014, she also taught at the University of Naples on the Faculty of Letters, running the course on the History of techniques and graphic arts. 

For her extraordinary work, Jatta has been appointed the order of “Stella d’Italia” by the president of the Italian Republic, the Royal Order of “the Polar Star” by the King of Sweden and the order of “the Arts and the Letters” by the Minister of Culture of France. 

 The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Recipient of the Sam Rose ’58 & Julie Walters Prize at Dickinson College for Global Environmental Activism 

The $100,000 Sam Rose ’58 & Julie Walters Prize, awarded yearly to an individual or group that makes a significant contribution to furthering responsible action on the environment, will be given to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). 

The 2022 award, originally announced during the 2021 COP 26 United Nations Climate Conference in Glasgow, recognizes the IPCC’s work highlighting climate change issues and calling for an effective path towards a more sustainable future. Their reports have been published for decades and have sparked action by governments and smaller organizations alike. 

The IPCC has said they will utilize the prize money to better fund the IPCC Scholarship Programme which provides PhD students from developing countries with funds to research climate change and effective responses.