Oprah Winfrey to speak at NY, Massachusetts college commencements

NORTHAMPTON, Mass. (AP) — Oprah Winfrey has agreed to will give commencement speeches at colleges in Massachusetts and New York.

Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, and Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York, both say Winfrey will address students at their spring graduation ceremonies.

One of Smith’s graduating students and another from Skidmore previously attended the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy, a boarding school that the media mogul opened in 2007 for poor girls in South Africa.

Winfrey, a graduate of Tennessee State University, is scheduled to speak May 20 at Skidmore and a day later at Smith. Each school says it will award her an honorary degree.

Winfrey also was at Skidmore in October 2013 to visit two graduates of her South African school.

Associated Press