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Harvard GSD names Jia Tolentino the 2021 Class Day speaker

Image text: Harvard University, Graduate School of Design [GSD logo] Virtual Commencement 2021

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

Jia Tolentino will present the GSD's 2021 Class Day Address. Photo by Elena Mudd.
Jia Tolentino will present the GSD’s 2021 Class Day Address. Photo by Elena Mudd.

Tolentino is a staff writer at the New Yorker and the author of the bestselling essay collection Trick Mirror, which has been translated into eleven 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, received her MFA in fiction from the University of Michigan, and 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.