Graduate Convocation

Karen DeYoung, an award-winning senior national security correspondent and associate editor for The Washington Post, will deliver the Maxwell School’s graduate convocation address on May 9 in Hendricks Chapel. 

During her nearly four decades at the paper, DeYoung has served as bureau chief in Latin America and London, and as a correspondent covering the White House, U.S. foreign policy, and the intelligence community.  She has also been assistant managing editor for national news, national editor, and foreign editor.

"Karen DeYoung's remarkable career as an international journalist and author offers a unique opportunity for our graduates and their families and friends to gain insight into the exciting world into which they are about to embark," says Maxwell School Dean James Steinberg. 

DeYoung is the author of the widely acclaimed Soldier: The Life of Colin Powell.  The 2005 biography details Powell’s rise from humble roots growing up in the Bronx as the son of Jamaican immigrants to his meteoric rise through the military ranks, culminating with his term as secretary of state in the Bush administration and his role in making the case for war with Iraq.  The New York Review of Books called the book “sympathetic, but not uncritical… It doesn’t pull punches.”

DeYoung has won a number of awards, including a 2002 Pulitzer Prize she shared with several Washington Post colleagues for national coverage of the war on terrorism; the 2003 Edward Weintal Award for Diplomatic Reporting; and Sigma Delta Chi awards for investigative reporting and foreign reporting.  In 2013, she was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for national reporting on how American drones have become a permanent weapon of war.

The convocation on Friday, May 9, at 10:00 a.m. in Hendricks Chapel is open to all members of the Syracuse University community.  A reception in Maxwell Foyer will follow at 11:30 a.m.