Honorary Degree

Honorary Degree

Remarks of Father Stephen V. Sundborg, S.J., President, at Seattle University's Commencement, June 11, 2000

"Sherman Alexie, you have captivated the American imagination with what you call "little books about one little reservation in Washington State." Your work to replace our flat vision of noble savages with three-dimensional portrayals of modern heroes and villains who happen to be (and I defer to using your term here) Indian has garnered critical acclaim and commercial success.

"Raised on the Spokane Indian Reservation, you overcame a childhood of ill health and poverty. You battled your own alcoholism as well as the alcoholism of those around you, and emerged to become one of our country's most prolific and celebrated writers.

"Sherman Alexie, you left the reservation to attend Reardan High School, where you graduated with honors. You attended Gonzaga University on a scholarship, and graduated with a degree in American Studies from Washington State University, where you developed a passion for poetry.

"Sherman, you have written 11 books of poetry and fiction, and contributed poems to eight anthologies. You wrote a screenplay based on one of your collections of short stories, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. In 1998,that movie, Smoke Signals, won two awards at the Sundance Film Festival. You have received a number of other prestigious awards, including: the National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowship; the Ernest Hemingway Foundation Award Citation; and the PEN/Hemmingway Best First Book of Fiction Citation. The New York Times has named two of your works to its Notable Books list, and Granta Magazine named you one of the 20 best American novelists under age 40.

"Your voice brings a new perspective to our understanding of life in the Northwest, of our region's first inhabitants, and of the modern-day struggle we all share, to make peace with our collective past. Therefore, in recognition of your accomplishments as a writer and a storyteller, upon you, Sherman Alexie, Seattle University proudly confers the degree of doctor of humanities, honoris causa."