March 06, 2024
Arthur C. Brooks, author and happiness expert, to be featured speaker at Providence College commencement
Happiness expert Arthur C. Brooks, Ph.D., author of Build the Life You Want: The Art and Science of Getting Happier, co-written with Oprah Winfrey, will be the featured speaker at Providence College’s 106th Commencement Exercises. The undergraduate ceremony for the Class of 2024 will take place at Amica Mutual Pavilion in downtown Providence on Sunday, May 19, 2024, at 11 a.m.
The commencement for graduate and continuing education students will be on Friday, May 17, 2024, at 6:30 p.m. in Peterson Recreation Center on campus. The speaker will be Wanda Ingram, Ed.D. ’75, who retired in 2023 after three decades as academic advisor and undergraduate dean at the college and who was a member of its first undergraduate class to include women.
Brooks and Ingram will receive honorary degrees at the undergraduate commencement ceremony. Also honored will be:
• Troy Quinn, DMA ’05, a conductor of symphony orchestras in Florida, Kentucky, California, and Rhode Island, who has performed with The Rolling Stones, Josh Groban, Jennifer Hudson, The Beach Boys, and Barry Manilow, and who teaches conducting at the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music.
• Elizabeth Ruane, M.Ed., who with her husband, Michael, has been one of the college’s most generous benefactors, making possible the Ruane Center for the Humanities and the Ruane Friar Development Center, while also supporting centers and endowed chairs at Massachusetts General Hospital, Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, and Beverly Hospital.
• Raymond Sickinger, Ph.D. ’71, professor emeritus of history at the college and a longtime mentor to its students. He also is a longtime member and supporter of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, the Catholic lay organization devoted to serving the poor worldwide, and is the author of a book about its founder, Antoine Frederic Ozanam: Life, Lessons, Legacy.
Arthur C. Brooks, Ph.D. speaks to audiences around the world about human happiness and works to raise well-being within companies, universities, public agencies, and community organizations.
At Harvard University, he is the Parker Gilbert Montgomery Professor of the Practice of Public and Nonprofit Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School and professor of management practice at the Harvard Business School, teaching courses on leadership, happiness, and social entrepreneurship.
He writes the popular “How to Build a Life” column for The Atlantic and is the author of 13 books, including the 2022 New York Times bestseller, From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life, and the 2023 bestseller, Build the Life You Want: The Art and Science of Getting Happier, with co-author Oprah Winfrey.
He began his career as a classical French hornist, leaving college at 19 to tour and record in the United States and Spain. In his late 20s, while still performing, he returned to school, earning a bachelor’s degree through distance learning. At 31, he left music and earned an Ph.D. in public policy analysis from the Rand Graduate School while working as an analyst for the Rand Corporation’s Project Air Force, performing military operations research analysis.
He spent the next 10 years as a university professor, primarily at Syracuse University, where he taught economics and nonprofit management, and published 60 peer-reviewed articles and several books, including the textbook Social Entrepreneurship. In 2009, he became the president of the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., one of the world’s most influential think tanks. Over the following decade, he was selected as one of Fortune Magazine’s “50 World’s Greatest Leaders” and was awarded seven honorary doctorates.
Originally from Seattle, Brooks lives outside Boston with his wife, Ester Munt-Brooks, a native of Barcelona. They have three adult children: Joaquim, Carlos, and Marina.
