Brown to Bestow Honorary Degrees on Robert De Niro, Daveed Diggs & 4 Others

Brown to Bestow Honorary Degrees on Robert De Niro, Daveed Diggs & 4 Others

Brown University will bestow honorary degrees on actor Robert De Niro and rapper Daveed Diggs during the schools 249th Commencement ceremony that is set to take place on May 28. 

Robert De Niro 

De Niro won his first Academy Award for best supporting actor for “The Godfather: Part II” in 1974. Six years later, he received the Oscar for best actor for his performance in “Raging Bull.” 

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In 2009, De Niro received the Kennedy Center Honors and the Stanley Kubrick Britannia Award for Excellence in Film. In 2011, he served as jury president of the Cannes Film Festival and was honored with the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the Golden Globe Awards. 

He is co-founder of the Tribeca Film Festival and Tribeca Enterprises, a diversified global media company based in New York City. 

Daveed Diggs 

Diggs rose to fame on the New York theatre scene following Tony-winning performance in the roles of Thomas Jefferson and Marquis de Lafayette in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Broadway sensation “Hamilton.” For these roles, Diggs also earned a Lucille Lortel Award for best supporting actor. 

He is currently guest starring on ABC’s “Blackish” and will appear in HBO’s mockumentary “Tour de Pharmacy” alongside Andy Samberg and Will Forte.

Currently, he is producing a comedy pilot for ABC. Diggs earned a bachelor’s degree from Brown in 2004 with a theatre arts concentration.

Diggs will deliver the Baccalaureate address to the Class of 2017 on Saturday afternoon in the Meeting House of the First Baptist Church in America. 

Other Honorary Degrees 

Brown will bestow four other honorary degrees during the ceremony. 

Recipients of those degreed include visual science expert Donald Hood, businesswoman Indra Nooyi, business executive Richard Parsons and poet Rosmarie Waldrop.