Doctor of Humane Letters, Honoris Causa
Undergraduate Commencement Speaker
Peabody and Emmy Award-winning broadcast journalist Vladimir Duthiers, a 1991 URI political science graduate, will address about 15,000 students and families gathered with faculty and staff for the undergraduate commencement ceremony on Sunday, May 21, 2017 at 12:30 p.m. on the URI Quadrangle.
Known and respected worldwide for his coverage of global breaking news and features, Duthiers is a CBS News correspondent and an anchor for CBSN. As a leading broadcast journalist, he has been called upon to witness, synthesize and tell some of the most disturbing news. He says he reports the news “to give voice to the voiceless.”
From the Ferguson, Missouri shootings to the police-shooter manhunt in Pennsylvania, Duthiers’ gripping reports have been featured on many CBS programs. Before joining CBS in 2014, Duthiers was a CNN international correspondent based in Lagos, Nigeria. He received a Peabody Award for his report about the hundreds of girls who were kidnapped from their Nigerian school by the Islamist terror group Boko Haram. He also investigated the plight of trafficked children in Haiti and interviewed the nation’s president about the issue.
Duthiers began his broadcast career in 2009 on the CNN news program “Amanpour” before becoming associate producer for Anderson Cooper 360. The son of Haitian immigrants who is fluent in English, French, and Creole, he was among the first journalists to provide Emmy Award-winning coverage of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti.
Duthiers received his master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University and bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Rhode Island in 1991. At URI, he was known to have a special gift for reporting the news in the Good Five Cent Cigar, and on WRIU.