Yale Psychologist Laurie Santos Chosen as Commencement Speaker
Four Others to Receive Honorary Degrees
Thursday, May 20 – 11:00 a.m.
Hendricken Field, Providence College Campus
Providence, RI – Providence College (PC) announced today that Dr. Laurie Santos, a Yale University psychology professor and host of The Happiness Lab podcast, will present the Commencement Address at the College’s 103rd Commencement exercises. The ceremony will take place on Thursday, May 20 at 11:00 a.m. on Hendricken Field on the Providence College campus.
Dr. Santos is one of five honorary degree recipients PC will honor at this ceremony. The others are: Duane Bouligny ’94, a Wells Fargo & Co. investment banker who is a former trustee and mentor to multicultural students at PC; John Chan ’74, Rhode Island’s foremost promoter of jazz and blues music, and owner of Chan’s Fine Oriental Dining in Woonsocket, RI where he has hosted performances by numerous great and upcoming musicians since 1977; Emily Leary, a Connecticut philanthropist and humanitarian who has been a long-time supporter of the College and; E. James Mulcahy ’66 retired Morgan Stanley executive and inaugural president of the College’s National Board of Overseers.
A separate ceremony for graduate students and graduates of the School of Continuing Education will take place the following day, Friday, May 21 at 6:00 p.m., also on Hendricken field. Adam Benjamin ’91, co-founder of Upper Campus, a career learning and success platform that bridges the gaps between the student looking to learn about possible career paths, where to study for those careers, and which employers are looking for people with those skills, will be the featured speaker at that ceremony.
A cognitive scientist and professor of psychology at Yale, Dr. Laurie Santos’ course titled Psychology and the Good Life became the most popular course in Yale’s history with approximately one-fourth of Yale’s undergraduates enrolled in fall of 2018. In September 2019, she became the host of a podcast called The Happiness Lab, which examines the latest scientific research on factors that affect people’s well-being and happiness.
Dr. Santos is also the director of Yale’s Comparative Cognition Laboratory and their Canine Cognition Lab, as well as head of Yale’s Silliman College. She has been a featured TED speaker (TED Global Conference, Oxford, UK – 2010) and was listed in Popular Science as one of their “Brilliant Ten” young scientists in 2007. She also was named a “Leading Campus Celebrity” by Time magazine in 2013.
Originally from New Bedford, MA, Dr. Santos attended Harvard University. She received her BA degree from Harvard in 1997 magna cum laude in psychology and biology, and was awarded the annual Psychology Department Undergraduate Thesis Prize. She earned an MS in Psychology from Harvard in 2001 with a focus on cognition, brain and behavior, and then earned a doctorate in the same field in 2003. Her dissertation won the Richard J. Herrnstein Dissertation Prize for “the best dissertation that exhibits excellent scholarship, originality and breadth of thought, and a commitment to intellectual independence.”
Additional Honorees:
A trustee emeritus of the College who served from 2011-2020, Duane Bouligny has been a tireless advocate and supporter of PC’s multicultural students. A managing director in the Leveraged Finance group at Wells Fargo Securities based in San Francisco, CA, Duane manages the specialized industries debt capital markets team, which structures and originates loan syndications and high-yield financings, primarily for the gaming industry. During his career at Wells Fargo Securities, he also has managed teams covering the energy, forest products, and beverage industries.
Duane has served as co-chair of the first two “Reflecting Forward “weekends in 2017 and 2020, a recent PC initiative to celebrate the College’s many multicultural alumni and welcome them back to campus for a weekend of networking and special events. In October 2017, Duane and his wife Nancy made a six-figure gift to PC to name the Bouligny Lounge at the Center at Moore Hall, the College’s newly-opened arts and multicultural facility designed to help promote diversity, equity and inclusion at PC.
The Boulignys also established the Duane ’94 and Nancy Bouligny Scholarship Fund in 2011 to assist African-American and Asian-American students.
Duane serves on PC’s Career Education Advisory Committee and the PC School of Business Advisory Council. He has served as honorary chair of his Reunion Committee and was a panelist at the PC to Wall Street Breakfast event in 2019.
A restaurateur, music promoter, painter, and photographer, John Chan is well known in Rhode Island, throughout New England and beyond for two reasons. One is the fine food served at his Woonsocket restaurant, Chan’s Fine Oriental Dining. The other is for his tireless and decades-long promotion of both famous and upcoming jazz, blues, folk and cabaret artists and comedians who he has invited to perform at the restaurant. The list is long and legendary including Dizzy Gillespie, Leon Redbone, Livingston Taylor, James Montgomery and more. In addition, he helped launch the careers of then-budding Rhode Island musicians Scott Hamilton, Roomful of Blues, Duke Robillard, Greg Abate and several others.
John was introduced to jazz music by his PC roommates, Joseph Small and Nehru King, who had a music show on WDOM radio. He worked as a dishwasher, cook, and server at his parent’s restaurant during college, and came up with the idea to introduce this music to patrons of the facility. His efforts to introduce live music to Chan’s in 1977 were supported by Ron Della Chiesa, long-time host of the Music America program on WGBH radio in Boston, who coined Chan’s slogan – “Home of eggrolls, jazz and blues.”
After graduation, John returned to PC for photography classes. He continues to study drawing and painting at the Providence Art Club, and his framed watercolors decorate his restaurant.
John was inducted into the Rhode Island Music Hall of Fame in 2018. He was awarded the Pell Award for Excellence in the Arts by Trinity Repertory Company in 2015, and the Keeping the Blues Alive Award from the Blues Alive Foundation in Memphis, TN in 2011.
Emily Leary, along with her husband Bill ’10Hon, have had a profound impact on the College and its campus. They have a scholarship fund in their name; give to the annual fund; support capital projects; support PC Athletics; and much more. They have helped transform facilities for the PC Women’s Ice Hockey program into one of the best in the country.
In 2013, the Learys established the William C. and Emily D. Leary Endowed Scholarship to support students with financial need from Windsor Locks, East Granby, Suffield, Enfield, East Windsor, or Windsor, Conn., or a student in need due to a sudden change in financial circumstances.
In addition to her devotion to the College, Emily has been instrumental in starting and supporting a number of other philanthropic and community projects in CT including starting a Giving Tree Project in her parish where she also serves on the parish council, volunteering at a shelter in Hartford that provides food, clothing and care packages for the homeless, and serving as a long-term volunteer and board member of a food kitchen in Enfield, CT.
Archbishop Henry J. Mansell of the Archdiocese of Hartford awarded Emily the St. Joseph Medal in 2013 for her efforts on behalf of her parish.
Emily earned an associate degree from Katharine Gibbs School in 1956.
E. James (Jim) Mulcahy retired in 2014 from Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, where he was responsible for the oversight of four businesses with assets under management totaling $24 billion. Prior to joining Morgan Stanley in 2009, he was managing director/resident manager for Smith Barney’s Citigroup headquarters office, where he oversaw four businesses: Domestic Private Client, International Private Client, Middle Markets Fixed Income, and Equities. He also held other roles for Smith Barney for 1983-2001, including senior vice president and resident manager in New York City, where he was responsible for sales, administration, recruitment and retention.
Jim spent the bulk of his early career in marketing and account services positions with Dean Witter (Boston). He began his career with Polaroid Corporation in 1969 working in customer service and manufacturing support, before being elevated to senior marketing manager.
A 1966 PC graduate (Economics), Jim received an MBA from Boston College in 1970 and a certificate in advanced management from MIT’s Sloan School of Management in 1979. He served as a member of PC’s board of trustees from 2000-2008, and was the inaugural chair of the College’s National Board of Overseers from 2009-2020. He is now immediate past chair. He also is a member of the Providence College School of Business Advisory Council. Jim’s sustained service to the College led the National Alumni Association to present him with its Personal Achievement Award in 2016.
With his wife, Kathryn C. Mulcahy, Jim has endowed two scholarships at PC. The Mulcahy Family Scholarship Fund, established in 1998, supports students from the New York metropolitan area or Cape Cod. The Rev. James Quigley, O.P. ’60 Scholarship Fund, established in 2011, supports Hispanic or Latino students who attended a Catholic high school or are from Central or South America.
Jim is active in his community, serving as a trustee since 2018 of Cape Cod Healthcare, which oversees Cape Cod Hospital and Falmouth Hospital.
Founded in 1917, Providence College is the only college or university in the United States administered by the Dominican Friars. The Catholic, liberal arts college has an undergraduate enrollment of approximately 4,000 students and offers degrees in 52 academic majors and 38 minors. Since 1997, Providence College consistently has been ranked among the top five regional universities in the North according to U.S. News & World Report’s “America’s Best Colleges.”
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