Designer and Artist Bruce Mau to Give Commencement Address

In addition to Mau, an honorary degree will be awarded to Ray Halbritter, Oneida Nation representative and Turning Stone Enterprises chief executive officer. Halbritter will offer the Baccalaureate address on Saturday, May 24, at 3 p.m., in the Margaret Bundy Scott Field House. 

Hamilton President Steven Tepper shared his enthusiasm about the two speakers. “Our honorary degree recipients, who will also be addressing the graduates at Baccalaureate and Commencement, share a passion for innovation. Where some might see obstacles and limitations, Ray Halbritter and Bruce Mau see opportunities to make their worlds better,” Tepper said. 

“I’m especially pleased Mr. Halbritter has agreed to speak, because he is one of our country’s great entrepreneurs and is committed to the long-standing partnership between the College  and the Oneida Indian Nation,” Tepper added. “Bruce Mau will be fantastic as our Commencement speaker. As one of the most creative humans I know, he will share how to harness the power of design and use it for massive-scale change. Our graduates and their families will be inspired by both individuals.”

Bruce Mau

A Canadian designer, innovator, educator, author, and artist, Bruce Mau is renowned for his innovative approach to design and commitment to using creativity to address global challenges. His love of thorny problems led him to co-found the Massive Change Network (MCN), a design consultancy focused on social impact and sustainable solutions. Across nearly 40 years of design innovation, Mau has collaborated with global brands and companies, leading organizations, heads of state, well-known artists, and fellow optimists.

Mau is also known for his influential “Incomplete Manifesto for Growth,” which outlines his philosophy on creativity and continuous learning. When he wrote it in 1998, Mau said “It was my first attempt to answer the question: ‘How does one sustain a creative life?’”

He is a professor and strategic curricular advisor for several higher education institutions, including institute professor and professor of practice in graphic design at The Design School at Arizona State University; adjunct professor and member of the University of New South Wales Arts, Design & Architecture Academic and Executive Team; and visiting professor at Pratt Institute and the McEwen School of Architecture at Laurentian University in his hometown of Sudbury, Ontario. Along with MCN co-founder Aiyemobisi “Bisi” Williams, Mau created MASSIVE ACTION, a global multidisciplinary immersive learning initiative to collectively design a better future.

Mau has a passionate interest in the art of books and has designed more than 250 of them. He became an international figure with the 1995 publication of his landmark S,M,L,XL, designed and co-authored with award-winning architect Rem Koolhaas. As an author, Mau’s most recent books are MC24 and THE NEXUS: Augmented Thinking for a Complex World — The New Convergence of Art, Technology, and Science, co-authored with Julio M. Ottino.

Over the course of his career, Mau has received numerous prestigious arts awards including the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s Collab Design Excellence Award in 2015, in conjunction with an exhibition of his designs. In 2016 Mau received the Cooper Hewitt National Design Award for Design Mind, for his impact on design theory, design practice and/or public awareness.

He has worked on projects with Coca-Cola Company, McDonald’s, Herman Miller, Walt Disney Imagineering, and Freeman; the governments of Denmark, Guatemala, Panama, and Saudi Arabia; and the architects Frank Gehry, Rem Koolhaas, and SOM.

Mau’s work and life story are the subject of the 2022 feature-length documentary, MAU, which premiered at SXSW in 2021. Currently available on TVOD in North America, the film has brought design into the cultural spotlight.

Ray Halbritter

Ray Halbritter has led the Oneida people to an economic and cultural renaissance that has been hailed as a national model of success. He was raised on the Oneida Indian Nation’s homeland and worked as an ironworker before attending Syracuse University and then Harvard Law School.

He returned to Central New York to use his education to give back to his community, beginning the process of building the first major enterprises on the Oneida homelands. In 1979, the Oneida Indian Nation became the first American Indian government to offer gaming operations on sovereign land — one of many prescient moves that positioned the Oneida people to build what would become a world-class entertainment and gaming facility.

Halbritter’s vision has resulted in sustainable enterprises that have become an engine of jobs and cultural resurgence for the Oneida people. In the process, he has forged pacts with the federal government and built historic agreements with governors of New York and county leaders to end age-old disputes and ensure that Oneida enterprises are working to guarantee prosperity both for today’s community and for future generations.

Halbritter has instilled in the Oneida’s business enterprises a sense of cultural investment, spending revenues on health care, schools and services for Oneida members, and in institutions that will help protect the Oneida’s heritage. These include endowing a Harvard professorship in American Indian law, supporting the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian, and becoming a founding donor to the Museum of the American Revolution.

The Oneida Indian Nation’s success under Halbritter’s leadership has been hailed as a model for sustainable, diversified, and self-sufficient economic development. The nation’s businesses include Turning Stone Resort Casino, YBR Casino & Sports Book, Point Place Casino, The Lake House at Sylvan Beach, The Cove at Sylvan Beach, the Maple Leaf Market & SavOn chain of convenience stores, among others.

As a business and cultural leader, Halbritter has served as chairman of the Turning Stone Resort Championship and the Upstate New York Empowerment Fund, which raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for dozens of Central New York charities and civic groups.

Halbritter received the 2021 Mohawk Valley EDGE Leading Edge Award in recognition of the Oneida Indian Nation’s economic investment in the region, and in 2018 received the Native Voice Award from the National Congress of American Indians, recognizing him as one of the nation’s most distinguished leaders in Indian Country. In 2021 Halbritter was honored by the Oneida County History Center with the Richard W. Couper Living Legends Award as part of the organization’s Historical Hall of Fame.