Trinity awarded 541 undergraduate degrees and 25 master’s degrees Sunday, May 19, at the College’s 187th Commencement.

The valedictorian of the Class of 2013 was Christopher Hyde, and the salutatorian was  an Wu. Two students–Emily Howe and Ayiti-Carmel Maharaj-Best–received the Trustee  Award for Student Excellence. Paul Assaiante, associate professor of physical education and associate director of athletic endowment, received the Trustee Award for Faculty Excellence, while Margaret Grasso, administrative assistant in the English Department, was honored with the Trustee Award for Staff Excellence.

Professor Samuel Kassow, Charles H. Northam Professor of History, received the  Thomas Church Brownell Prize for Teaching Excellence, and Cirian Berry, assistant professor of English and director of the Creative Writing Program, received the Arthur H. Hughes Award for Achievement in Teaching.

The Charles A. Dana Research Professorship Award was given to Mark Setterfield, and Dana Research Associate Professorships were awarded to Zayde Antrim, associate professor of history and international studies, and Jeffrey Bayliss, associate professor of history.

Bridget Mary McCormack, a 1988 graduate of Trinity who was elected justice of the Michigan Supreme Court in November 2012, delivered the commencement address and received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree for her “exceptional devotion to legal  education, especially her passionate commitment to developing clinical opportunities for law students to learn while serving the public.”

Both of McCormack’s siblings, Mary Catherine McCormack, who starred in the television show The West Wing, and Will McCormack, who appeared in The Sopranos, attended Trinity, graduating in 1991 and 1996, respectively.

Honorary degrees also were given to Margaret Ann Farley, the Gilbert L. Stark Professor Emerita of Christian Ethics at the Yale University Divinity School; Michael Stanley Dukakis, a former three-term governor of Massachusetts and the 1988 Democratic candidate for president; and Elizabeth Kolbert, author of Field Notes from a Catastrophe and a staff writer for The New Yorker.

View a highlights video from Commencement 2013

And to view a gallery of Commencement photos on flickr, click here.