Pomona’s Honorary Degrees Committee (HDC) has selected Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano to be the featured speaker at the college’s commencement ceremony May 16.

Napolitano, a Democrat and former governor of Arizona, has served for one year as head of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security after being appointed by President Barack Obama. The college was able to book her thanks to a student connection.

“I’m excited,” Senior Class President Calvin Kagan PO ’10 said. “I think that she’s somebody that our class will be very excited about. She is the biggest name we’ve had here in a while.”

Kagan said he began soliciting speaker recommendations from the Class of 2010 last spring. He sat in on HDC meetings and participated in the selection process. Napolitano accepted the committee’s invitation in November and committee members voted to confirm her in December. According to Kagan, Napolitano will receive an honorary degree and will not receive monetary compensation for speaking.

“She’s going to be an interesting and timely person to be speaking at graduation because of the issues around immigration and, from a Pomona perspective, the Nick George story about homeland security,” Pomona College President David Oxtoby said.

Nick George PO ’10 recently filed a lawsuit against the federal government after he was detained while carrying Arabic flashcards at the Philadelphia International Airport last summer.