PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — During its Commencement and Reunion Weekend from May 23 to 25, Brown University will confer honorary doctorates on seven candidates who have achieved great distinction in a variety of fields. The candidates are:
Jon Batiste — Award-winning musician
Allyson Felix — Olympic gold medalist
Eileen Hayes — Social services leader
Suleika Jaouad — Author and artist
William Kentridge — Artist
Timothy Snyder — Historian
Kevin Young — Award-winning poet
Recipients will receive prominent recognition at the University Ceremony on Sunday, May 25. Felix, who is a five-time Olympian and the most decorated American track and field athlete in history, will deliver the Baccalaureate address to the University’s undergraduate Class of 2025 on Saturday afternoon at the First Baptist Church in America. The ceremony will be livestreamed on Brown’s Commencement website.
Honorary degrees are awarded by the Board of Fellows of the Corporation of Brown University and are conferred by University President Christina H. Paxson during Commencement exercises.
While the Board of Fellows awards the degrees, many of the recipients were recommended by the Advisory Committee on Honorary Degrees, a faculty and student committee chaired this year by Professor of English Richard Rambuss. The committee offered recommendations for leaders who have demonstrated excellence in a variety of fields, including based on nominations received from Brown faculty, staff and students.
Honorary degree recipients do not serve as Commencement speakers; since its earliest days, Brown has reserved that honor for members of the graduating class. Additional details on Commencement forums and other events during the weekend will be posted on Brown’s Commencement website.
Honorary degree candidates
Jon Batiste. Photo by Jonny Marlow.
Jon Batiste Doctor of Music Award-winning musician
Jon Batiste is a seven-time Grammy and Academy Award-winning singer, songwriter and composer who is among the most prolific and accomplished contemporary musicians globally.
Born in New Orleans, Batiste is known for powerful music that draws on classical, jazz, R&B and soul. He has released eight studio albums and won, among many honors, an Academy Award for “Best Original Score” for the 2020 Disney-Pixar film “Soul.” His 2021 album “We Are” was nominated for a historic 11 Grammys Awards across seven categories. In 2024, he released his most recent studio album, “Beethoven Blues (Batiste Piano Series, Vol. 1),” which is the first in his solo piano series, reimagining classical works through a fresh lens.
Along with his wife — author and artist Suleika Jaouad — Batiste was the subject of the Oscar and Grammy-nominated 2023 documentary “American Symphony,” which won a Grammy for “Best Music Film” along with an Oscar nomination for “Best Original Song.”
Batiste serves as a creative director for the National Jazz Museum in Harlem. From 2015 until 2022, he served as the bandleader and musical director of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” on CBS.
Batiste earned a bachelor’s degree and a master of music from the Juilliard School.
Allyson Felix. Photo by Wes Felix.
Allyson Felix Doctor of Humane Letters Olympic gold medalist
Five-time Olympian Allyson Felix is the most decorated American track and field athlete in history.
With a record 20 world championships and 11 Olympic medals, including seven golds, Felix retired in 2022 leaving a historic legacy in competitive running. In 2024, she was elected to the International Olympic Committee, the governing body of the Olympic Games.
An influential voice in women’s athletics, Felix publicly advocated for improved maternity policies in the sports apparel industry and helped spur maternity protections for sponsored athletes. Ahead of the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, she led an initiative to create the first-ever family space in the Olympic Village to support parent-athletes during the games.
Felix is the founder of Saysh footwear for women, a company that challenges traditional gendered sneaker design, and co-founder of Always Alpha, a women’s sports management firm. She serves as an ambassador for Right to Play, which supports underserved children across the world, and co-founded the Power of She Fund at the Women’s Sports Foundation to help provide childcare support for athletes who are mothers.
Felix earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Southern California. She and her husband live in Los Angeles with their two children.
Eileen Hayes. Photo by Jessica Salter.
Eileen Hayes Doctor of Humane Letters Social services leader
For 24 years, Eileen Hayes has served as president and CEO of Amos House, a Rhode Island social services organization that has supported generations of individuals and families.
A compassionate visionary who began her career as a social worker, Hayes helped transform Amos House from a soup kitchen to a multifaceted organization that offers employment programs, services and housing to individuals facing poverty, hunger, homelessness and addiction.
Under her leadership, Amos House launched two social enterprises, More Than a Meal Catering and Amos House Builds, both of which employ graduates of its training programs and generate income to support the organization. Its housing portfolio has grown to house hundreds of individuals, families, children and older adults in apartments, rooming houses and shelters. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the organization managed a warming center in Providence that served more than 200 individuals a night.
Hayes has channeled her experience, success and dedication to serving as a mentor and trainer across her field and an adviser on program design and implementation for other organizations. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Hunter College and a master of social work from New York University. She lives in Providence, Rhode Island, and has four children and two grandchildren.
Suleika Jaouad. Photo by Sunny Shokrae.
Suleika Jaouad Doctor of Letters Author and artist
Suleika Jaouad is an Emmy Award-winning journalist, artist, advocate and New York Times bestselling author of “Between Two Kingdoms” and “The Book of Alchemy.”
After a leukemia diagnosis at age 22, she launched her widely read New York Times column and video series “Life, Interrupted” from her hospital bed. Her essays and reporting have appeared in publications including the New York Times Magazine, the Atlantic and Vogue.
Jaouad created the Isolation Journals, a newsletter founded at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic that helps 200,000 people from around the world tap into the transformative power of creativity. She and her husband, musician Jon Batiste, are the subject of the Oscar-nominated and Grammy Award-winning documentary “American Symphony,” which portrays the artists during a year of extreme highs and lows.
An advocate for health care reform, Jaouad served on Barack Obama’s Presidential Cancer Panel and received the Inspire Award from the National Marrow Donor Program (Be the Match) for her work to expand and diversify the national bone marrow registry.
A citizen of Tunisia, Switzerland and the United States, Jaouad attended the Juilliard School’s pre-college program for the double bass. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Princeton University and an MFA from Bennington College.
William Kentridge. Photo by Norbert Miguletz
William Kentridge Doctor of Fine Arts Artist
William Kentridge is a leading South African artist whose works have been exhibited globally. Working across drawing, writing and film, Kentridge grounds his creations in politics, science, literature and history. He is renowned for his original works for the stage, which combine performance, projections, voice and music.
Since the 1990s, Kentridge’s art has been exhibited at major institutions including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Albertina Museum in Vienna, the Louvre Museum in Paris, the Louisiana Museum in Copenhagen, the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid, and the Royal Academy of Arts in London.
He has directed Mozart’s “The Magic Flute,” Shostakovich’s “The Nose” and Alban Berg’s operas “Lulu” and “Wozzeck” at venues including the Metropolitan Opera in New York, La Scala in Milan, the English National Opera in London and the Salzburg Festival. In 2023, he received an Olivier Award for outstanding achievement in opera for “Sibyl” in London.
Kentridge was born in Johannesburg, where in 2016 he co-founded the Centre for the Less Good Idea, an incubator for experimental performance. In 2024, he was an artist-in-residence at the Brown Arts Institute as part of a series to commemorate the inaugural year of Brown’s Lindemann Performing Arts Center.
Timothy Snyder. Photo by Jamie Napier.
Timothy Snyder Doctor of Letters Historian
Timothy Snyder is a leading historian on Ukraine, Central Europe, the Soviet Union and the Holocaust who earned his bachelor’s degree in history and political science from Brown University in 1991.
An influential scholar and writer on authoritarianism, politics and health, Snyder offers insightful commentaries and in-depth historical analyses that have inspired artistic expressions ranging from film to rock opera. He has authored or edited 20 books that have been published in 40 languages. Those include “On Tyranny: 20 Lessons from the 20th Century,” “The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America,” and “Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin,” for which he won the Ralph Waldo Emerson Award.
A professor of history at Yale University, Snyder holds the inaugural chair in modern European history at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto.
Among many recognitions, he has received the Hannah Arendt Prize for Political Thought, the Leipzig Book Award for European Understanding, and Guggenheim and Carnegie fellowships. He is a fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna and head of the academic advisory council of the Ukrainian History Global Initiative.
Snyder, who speaks five languages and reads 10 European languages, earned a Ph.D. from Oxford in addition to his degree from Brown.
Kevin Young. Photo by Melanie Dunea.
Kevin Young Doctor of Letters Award-winning poet
Kevin Young is an acclaimed poet, essayist, poetry editor and curator who earned his master of fine arts in creative writing from Brown University in 1996.
A prolific poet who has authored 15 books of poetry and prose and edited 11 volumes, Young is the poetry editor at the New Yorker. Among many recognitions for his books of poetry, “Stones” was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize, “Book of Hours” won the 2015 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets, and “Jelly Roll: a blues” won the Paterson Poetry Prize and was a National Book Award finalist.
Young served as director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture from 2021 to 2025, prior to which he directed the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. From 2005 to 2016, he was Candler professor and curator of the Raymond Danowski Poetry Library at Emory University.
A recipient of Guggenheim, Stegner and MacDowell fellowships, Young was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2016 and was named a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 2020.
Young received a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University before earning an MFA from Brown.
BACK TO MOUNTAIN WEST ACTION: After a brief break for the Christmas holiday, the San José State women’s basketball team returns to action this Sunday with a Mountain West game against Grand Canyon at the Provident Credit Union Event Center. Both teams enter the game looking for their first conference win of the season. The Spartans fell at Wyoming, 83-60, while GCU fell to UNLV, 61-60, in a home game for the Lopes.
San José State enters Sunday’s game looking to extend a winning streak after defeating Sacramento State, 61-56, on December 21. Maya Anderson led all scorers with a career-high 29 points in the win.
Sunday’s game is the first of three SJSU plays this week. The Spartans play at Utah State Wednesday afternoon to end 2025. The team starts 2026 with a home game against New Mexico on January 3 at 2 p.m.
ABOUT GRAND CANYON: The Lopes enter Sunday’s game with a 1-10 overall record and 0-1 mark in the Mountain West. The Lopes opened conference play by pushing defending champion UNLV to the brink before falling 61-60 in the final minute of the game. The team’s only win of the season came against SMU, 76-60, on November 18. Head coach Winston Gandy is in his first season at the school.
Series Record – First meeting
CAREER DAY FOR M. ANDERSON: Maya Anderson recorded her best scoring game as a Spartan with 29 points in the team’s 61-56 win over Sacramento State on December 21. She was 12-for-21 from the field and 2-for-7 from three-point range. Anderson scored 19 of her 29 points in the first half, including 10 points in the first quarter.
M. ANDERSON LEADING THE SPARTANS:
Maya Anderson leads San José State in scoring with 152 points, 12.9 per game. She has led the team in points scored in six games including a career-best 29 points in a win over Sacramento State. She has scored in double figures in eight games this season..
Anderson also leads the team with 71 rebounds, 5.9 per game. She has led the team in boards in four games – 8 at BYU, 9 against UC Santa Barbara, 12 versus Cal State Monterey Bay and 7 against Sacramento State.
NATIONAL RANKINGS: Through December 22, the Spartans rank in the top-100 nationally in five categories.
Blocks PG – 51st 4.6 pg
Three-Point Attempts PG – 62nd 24.3 pg
Rebounds – Defensive – 90th 27.0 pg
WHO WANTS TO SCORE TONIGHT? Through 12 games this season, six different Spartans have led the team in scoring. Maya Anderson has led the team in scoring in six games, while Rylei Waugh led the team in three games. Amira Brown scored 12 points in the win at CBU, while Gabriela Pato scored 11 to lead the Spartans at No. 21 Washington. Katarina Anderson came off the bench at California and scored 10 points to lead SJSU. Stella Sgro scored a career-best 12 points off the bench at Wyoming.
UP NEXT: San José State finishes 2025 with a game at Utah State this Wednesday, December 31. Tip time is set for 1 p.m. MT/12 p.m. PT at the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum.
Give your views by filling in the Volleyball England 2025-26 Club Survey and you could win VW200 Mikasa balls for use during training and matches.
The survey has been distributed today (27th December) to club administrators, with spot prizes of two balls given out at key milestones.
The survey takes just 15 to 20 minutes to complete, and, by participating, your club is helping to shape the future direction of the sport in this country.
To complete the survey, check your club’s admin email inbox for the relevant link.
“The information gleaned from the Club Survey remains invaluable in shaping Volleyball England’s future planning and delivery,” said Oliver Hudson, Volleyball England’s Project lead for Data and Insights.
“The more clubs who are able to give their thoughts and opinions, the easier it is for us as the national governing body to respond to the needs of the sport, so we’re always extremely grateful to those clubs that fill out the survey.”
The survey will remain open until 31st January 2026, after which the data will be anaylsed and key findings communicated across the organisation and its sub-groups before a summary of findings will be released to clubs.
If you have any questions or need assistance with the Club Survey, please email o.hudson@volleyballengland.org.
PELLA — Central College track and field junior Gabe Feldmann of Mount Pleasant hasn’t let cystic fibrosis slow him down on the track or his generosity off the track to raise support for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.
An inherited genetic disease, cystic fibrosis impacts the lungs, digestive system and other organs in the body. A build-up of thick, sticky mucus can lead to breathing problems, infections and digestive issues by blocking ducts and airways.
Depending on the weekend, Feldmann typically competes in races that range from the 200-meter dash all the way up to the 800-meter run. His focus is on the 400 meters, an event he has completed 13 times in his first two years at Central.
Breathing is an important part of all running events, but especially the 400.
“You breathe hard in a 400,” he said. “You feel it right in the chest.”
He completed the lap around the track in 51.62 seconds at the American Rivers Outdoor Championships in 2025, placing 22nd. He also was on the fifth-place 4×400-meter relay squad at that same meet.
Feldmann was approached by the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation about using his college athletic experience as a platform to raise money. Starting earlier this fall and running through the end of the Dutch season in early May, Feldmann is posting content on his Instagram account (@gabetracksdowncf) and thanking supporters who have donated to the foundation.
“It was the option that really stuck out to me,” he said. “I work out every day no matter what for track, but I’m still raising money doing what I do normally.”
He’s working towards clocking in at 48 seconds in the 400 this year.
“My goal is to run a 48 this year,” he said. “If I’m able to do that, I’ll be able to tell everybody who supported me in this that they were there with me.”
Raising money for the foundation is not new to the Feldmann family, who ran fundraising events in Mount Pleasant from 2016-2023.
Money isn’t the only motivation for Feldmann, who also wants to inspire other people with cystic fibrosis to chase big goals.
“I said I was never going to let being born with cystic fibrosis limit me.” he said. “I’ve been an athlete my whole life. If I could show any other kid that having cystic fibrosis doesn’t have to hold them back, that would be super cool. It’s the entire goal.”
RICHMOND, Ky. – Eastern Kentucky University’s volleyball team has added two transfers for the 2026 season – Audrey Hudson, an outside hitter transferring from Wright State University, and Alexis Bull, a middle blocker/right side transferring from the University of Texas at Arlington.
“I’m so excited to add Audrey and Alexis to our program,” EKU Head Coach Johnna Bazzani said. “They both come from championship programs. That alone is going to help elevate and raise the standard in our gym!”
The 5-foot-10 Hudson will be a junior in 2026. In her first season at Wright State, she played in five matches before suffering a season-ending injury. In 2025, Hudson played in 18 matches and started three times. She averaged 0.83 kills and 1.62 digs per set.
Hudson, a Fort Wayne, Indiana native, played high school volleyball at Bishop Dwenger and club volleyball for Munciana. She helped Bishop Dwenger capture a 3A State Championship in 2020. She was a second team all-state pick in 2022 and a first team all-conference selection as a senior in 2023.
Bull will be a senior in 2026. She played in 42 matches over three seasons at UT Arlington. As a junior this past season, Bull averaged 1.03 kills and 0.66 blocks in 19 matches. She led the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) with an average of 0.41 aces per set. Bull had a season-best six blocks at Louisiana and a season-high seven kills against Jackson State.
The 6-foot-2 Magnolia, Texas native was a 4-year member of the AVCA Phenom Watch List during her high school career at Oak Ridge and Magnolia. She recorded 878 kills, 280 blocks and 123 aces during her prep career. Bull was chosen as First Team All-Montgomery County and as the District 19-5A Offensive Player of the Year in 2022.
EKU tied for second in the Atlantic Sun Conference standings this season and advanced to the ASUN Tournament championship match. The Colonels have won 20 or more matches in three straight seasons, the first time the program has accomplished that since 2003-05.
Taylor Gashi just needed to find the sport that gave her the best chance at achieving the goals for her future.
High-level youth gymnastics competition gave way to years of work on the volleyball court that continued even after a development in Gashi’s freshman year at Wyoming Area pointed her on the right path.
“With track and field, I kind of knew a few years back,” said Gashi, who on Dec. 15 formalized her commitment to attend the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and compete in the sport. “Volleyball has been a part of my life longer than track and field. Freshman year, I placed second in district for triple jump so that was kind of a wake-up call for my coaches and my family that this could probably go somewhere far.”
Gashi expects to concentrate on the long jump and triple jump while competing at Army West Point, but her overall athletic ability means she could potentially help the team in the heptathlon, a combination of events she tested and did well at with a Lehigh Valley club team last summer. As a junior at Wyoming Area, Gashi finished 20th in the state in Class 3A in the triple jump after taking silver medals in District 2 in the triple jump and discus and a bronze in the long jump.
Once Gashi realized track and field was her best option for a college sport, the rest fell into place.
“That same year, I also got to experience going to West Point for a football game,” she said. “One of my good friends brought me there. Both of my parents had been in the military, so the military was never something I was opposed to doing.”
Gashi learned more about the athletic program’s status on the National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I level, leading to her verbal commitment in September.
“It was kind of everything I had been looking for and track and field was something that could get me there,” she said.
Gashi will report to West Point for plebe summer, beginning her military duties before academics start next fall. Accepting her nomination to the academy means a five-year military commitment after she is done with school.
While at Wyoming Area, Gashi has kept busy not just in multiple events in track and field, but in multiple sports.
In volleyball, Gashi was a four-year starter, earning first-team, all-star status from Wyoming Valley Conference coaches this fall after previously receiving honorable mention.
After taking last year off, Gashi is back on the swim team this winter, specializing as freestyle sprinter.
Unsure of a major, Gashi has interest in looking into military intelligence and aviation.
“Those are the two that really strike interest for me,” she said.
He claimed victory in 19 of his 28 races, won multiple conference titles, and twice finished second at the NCAA Championships. He also ran a blazing fast time of 2:12 at the California International Marathon earlier this month, which earned him a spot in the 2028 Olympic Trials with one of the fastest times in D-III history. His goal is to win a national title. It is within reach.
However, the soon-to-be second-semester senior will not be eligible for his final season of competition.
The Augsburg track and field star is banned by the NCAA.
Mohammed Bati announced on Christmas Eve that he will not be allowed to finish out his career. He was deemed ineligible to compete during his final indoor and outdoor seasons with Augsburg.
The ruling stems from financial assistance.
Bati is a nursing major. He struggled to make ends meet while working overnight shifts at an assisted living facility. His options were to not pay his tuition and drop out of school or ask for help. He chose the latter.
The local community raised $6,000 for Bati to pay his tuition. That allowed him to continue at Agsburg but it also ended his track and field career.
“I don’t think some NCAA rules are fair to everyone. I want to share something real today.
Last semester I was struggling a lot with money. I didn’t want to drop out or stop going to school, and the community around me came together to support me. People helped me with around $6000 so I could pay for that semester. I’m still grateful for that it was love, it was support, not anything big or business or something bad. Just people helping someone who needed it.
But the NCAA saw that support and said it was a violation. Because of that, I can’t run indoor or outdoor this year. They said someone paying for my school breaks the rule. I understand that’s their rule, but I don’t think they look at the story behind it. Sometimes people get help because life is hard. Not everyone has money. Sometimes it’s just one moment, one time, trying to survive and move forward.
It feels sad that instead of seeing support as community love, it’s seen as something wrong. I didn’t get paid. I didn’t get something crazy. Just help to stay in school. And because of that, I’m not allowed to run. That part is not easy to accept. I worked hard. I love running. I wanted to run this season with my teammates, make memories in my last year.
But even with all this, I’m still grateful. I’m thankful for everyone who helped me, who believed in me. I’ve been through a lot in life, and this is just another challenge. It will not break me. I’m not disappearing, I’m still here, still training, still smiling, still fighting for my dreams.
Sometimes rules don’t see the human behind the story. But I hope one day, things like helping someone won’t be a reason to stop them from doing what they love.
Thank you to my community, thank you to everyone who supports me. I will keep going.”
— Mohammed Bati on Strava
There is one key detail to note here. Division-III athletes are allowed to earn money through NIL.
Athletes at any level can be paid for endorsements, sponsored posts on social media, appearances, etc. Everything goes as long as the compensation is tied to the commercial use of the athlete’s name or image.
Athletes cannot receive outside financial assistance that functions as tuition support or additional athletic benefit unless it fits within the specific financial aid structure or NIL guidelines set by the NCAA. Mohammed Bati’s $6,000 gift did not qualify. It was more like emergency financial support.
As a result, he will not be allowed to finish out his college track and field career.
The NCAA guidelines on NIL are supposed to to prevent a pay-for-play system, even though it has been abused to the fullest extend on the Division-I level. Especially for football and basketball. Some athletes are making seven-figure salaries through “NIL” agreements. Bati’s money was not tied to this kind of agreement so it was technically illegal.
