Announcing the 2026 Commencement Speakers and Honorary Degree Recipients
Assumption University today announced that scholar Roosevelt Montás and non-profit executive Larry R. Thayer will speak at the Undergraduate and Graduate School Commencement ceremonies in May. Montás, and Micheál J. Kelly, a global business leader, will receive honorary degrees.
“We are honored to have these distinguished speakers share their insights with our graduates,” said Assumption University President Greg Weiner. “Each of our honorees embodies the power of liberal education—from Dr. Montás’ scholarship, to Dr. Kelly’s business acumen, to Mr. Thayer’s dedication to social services. All three have dedicated their lives and careers to the pursuit of the common good, and we are truly looking forward to welcoming them this May.”
Roosevelt Montás, Ph.D. will deliver the commencement address at the 2026 Undergraduate Commencement ceremony on Sunday, May 17, at 10:00 a.m. at the DCU Center in Worcester, Massachusetts. He will also be conferred the degree of Doctor of Humane Letters honoris causa.
Montás, who was born in the Dominican Republic and immigrated to New York as a teenager, gained wide acclaim for his 2021 book Rescuing Socrates: How the Great Books Changed My Life and Why They Matter for a New Generation. In the book, Montás reflects on his experiences as a student and then a teacher at Columbia University, exploring how liberal education transformed his life and why Great Books have the power to speak to people of all backgrounds.
Montás is a tenured professor and the executive director of the Chang Chavkin Center for Liberal Education and Civic Life at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. He was appointed the first John and Margaret Bard Professor in Liberal Education and Civic Life, a newly created faculty chair, in 2025.
At Bard, Montás teaches in the undergraduate college within the Division of Languages and Literature and leads research for the advancement of liberal education. His scholarship and teaching focuses on the importance of liberal education and the study of great books to prepare students for lives of purpose and to promote the formation of citizens for a democratic society.
Previously, Montás taught as a Senior Lecturer at Columbia University in American Studies and English and served as director of the Center for the Core Curriculum from 2008 to 2018, where he taught moral and political philosophy as well as seminars in American political thought. He also led Columbia’s Freedom and Citizenship Program, which introduces high school students from disadvantaged backgrounds to the Western political tradition through the study of primary texts and helps them prepare competitive college applications.
He is also author of the forthcoming Becoming America: Four Documents That Shaped a Nation and Why Their Ideas Still Matter and coeditor of The Princeton History of American Political Thought. His essays on liberal education have appeared in The Atlantic, The Los Angeles Times, The Financial Times, The New York Daily News, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed, The Wall Street Journal, and many other outlets.
Montás holds an A.B., M.A., and a Ph.D. in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University.
Larry R. Thayer ’70, G’72 will deliver the commencement address at the 2026 Graduate Commencement ceremony on Wednesday, May 20, at 4:00 p.m. in the Plourde Recreation Center on the Assumption University campus.
Thayer is a renowned leader in the field of human services, having led Cape Abilities, a non-profit organization supporting individuals with disabilities, as President and CEO for nearly three decades.
After graduating from Assumption in 1970 with a bachelor’s degree in political science, he went on to receive a master’s degree in rehabilitation counseling in 1972. Thayer then worked as area director for the Massachusetts Rehabilitation Commission first in Fitchburg, Massachusetts and then on Cape Cod. He subsequently was the Director of outpatient and inpatient psychiatric services on the Cape before joining Cape Abilities in 1989 as President and Executive Director (later CEO) and leading the organization until his retirement in 2014.
Under Thayer’s leadership, Cape Abilities amassed several acres of donated land that were used to expand the organization’s facilities to include two farms, three social enterprises, and a farmstand alongside services including day habilitation, residential services, transportation services, and community employment for individuals with disabilities.
Cape Abilities has been featured in the New York Times, the Boston Globe, the CBS Evening News, and Oprah. It was one of 35 nonprofits nationwide to be invited by the Stafford Foundation to attend the People’s Inaugural Ball during President Barack Obama’s first inauguration in 2009.
Beyond his service to Cape Abilities, Thayer is a devoted volunteer and advocate in the Cape Cod community. He has served on over eleven boards of various civic and social organizations and currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Cape Cod Association and as Clerk on the Cultural Center of Cape Cod’s Board of Trustees. He served on the Cape Cod Foundation’s Board of Directors from 2014 to 2021.
In 2010, Thayer received Assumption’s Fr. Louis Dion, A.A. ’35 Outstanding Achievement Award for exceptional accomplishment in his field, extraordinary leadership skills, community service, business acumen, and entrepreneurship. In 2019, he was awarded the Cape Abilities Lifetime Achievement Award as the organization celebrated its 50th anniversary.
Micheál J. Kelly, Ph.D. ’70 will be conferred the degree of Doctor of Humane Letters honoris causa at the Graduate Commencement Ceremony.
Kelly is a global leader in business education and entrepreneurship who currently serves as an Executive in Residence at the Telfer School of Management at the University of Ottawa.
He was previously professor of strategy and global business and dean of the Telfer School of Management from 2000 to 2010, before leading the Lazaridis School of Business and Economics at Wilfrid Laurier University from 2012 to 2022 as dean and professor of business policy. He is responsible for the naming of both Schools.
In 2016, Kelly founded the Lazaridis Institute with the support of Blackberry co-founder Mike Lazaridis and the Province of Ontario, establishing the first national scale-up program to accelerate the growth of Canada’s most promising young technology companies—participants in its programming raised $2 billion in new investment.
Kelly co-authored Cases in Alliance Management and the four-part case series Strategic Alliances that Work. His research on strategic business alliances has been published in several leading journals, and he has lectured on the topic across Canada, the United States, Europe, and Asia.
Early in his academic career, he took a leave from the University of Ottawa to join the Canadian government where he spent a decade in Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade managing its foreign investment program. His global business leadership has since included service as chair of the Six Countries Programme, a European research network on innovation and technology policy, advisory board membership on the Silicon Valley Roundtable in California, and as director and chair of the governance committee of Definity Financial Corporation. He has also served on the boards of the Canadian Advanced Technology Alliance (CATA), Waterloo North Hydro, the ADGA Group and the Commercialization Advisory Committee of the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute.
As an educational leader, Kelly has chaired the Canadian Federation of Business School Deans and served on the Board of Governors for Beta Gamma Sigma, the international business honor society for AACSB-accredited schools. He has been a member of the Technical University of Munich’s School of Management Advisory Board, the conseil d’administration of the Reims Management School in France, and the Board of Trustees at Assumption University.
For his contribution to business education in Canada, Kelly was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal in 2002 and the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012. For his contribution to the Canadian technology industry, the Canadian Advanced Technology Alliance (CATA) awarded him its Community Leadership Award in 2010. He was chosen as the University of Ottawa’s Alumnus of the Year in 2016 and in 2023, Laurier University named him Honorary Alumnus of the Year.
Kelly holds his B.A. in foreign affairs from Assumption, an M.A. in political science from the University of Ottawa, and a Ph.D. in political science and government from Carleton University.