By Kenneth Jones
07 May 2009

Lin-Manuel Miranda, the 29-year-old creator, Tony Award-winning songwriter and original lead of the Tony Award-winning musical In the Heights, will become the youngest honorary doctoral degree recipient in Yeshiva University's 123-year-old history at the university's 78th Commencement on May 14.

Miranda grew up in the Inwood neighborhood of Manhattan near Washington Heights, the titular setting of the Broadway musical and home to YU's Main Campus. He'll be "presented for his degree by former New York City Mayor Ed Koch, and hooded by his parents Luis Miranda, a longtime community leader who was a special advisor to Mayor Koch, and Dr. Luz Towns-Miranda, an assistant clinical professor in the Department of Family and Social Medicine at YU's Albert Einstein College of Medicine."

More than 2,000 graduate students in the fields of law, medicine, social work, education, Jewish studies, and psychology, as well as undergraduate students from Yeshiva College, Stern College for Women, and Sy Syms School of Business, will be awarded degrees at the commencement.

Prof. David Shatz, professor of philosophy at YU's Stern College for Women, will deliver the keynote address and receive the Presidential Medallion, the highest honor bestowed on a member of the faculty or administration.

The YU commencement is at Madison Square Garden's WaMu Theater, Seventh Avenue at 32nd St., Manhattan.