College Announces 2023 Commencement Speaker

April 10, 2023

Franklin Cummings Tech is pleased to announce that author Michael Meyer will serve as the college’s 2023 keynote commencement speaker.

Meyer is the author of  Benjamin Franklin’s Last Bet: The Favorite Founder’s Divisive Death, Enduring Afterlife, and Blueprint for American Prosperity, the story of Benjamin Franklin’s deathbed gift of two thousand British pounds to the cities of Boston and Philadelphia that helped establish Franklin Cummings Tech.

The 2023 Commencement Ceremony will be held May 20, 2023 at 10AM in the Franklin Cummings Tech Auditorium. The ceremony will also be livestreamed at franklincummings.edu/graduationlive.

Meyer’s remarks will highlight the historic connection between Franklin Cummings Tech and the 1789 will of Founding Father Benjamin Franklin; the unique legacy of the school in building a qualified and diverse American workforce; and the connections between Franklin’s “wager,” the blueprint of prosperity in modern America, and the generational wealth generated from a technical education and career.

Benjamin Franklin believed that “good apprentices are likely to make good citizens.” Meyer’s incredible story captures Franklin’s contribution of £1000 to “the Inhabitants of the Town of Boston” to jump-start the careers of local tradesmen over the next two centuries, and the lessons for our current age we can take from the Founding Father’s 200-year wager.

Now known as Franklin Cummings Tech in honor of a $12.5 donation from the Cummings Family Foundation, the private, nonprofit technical college is a minority serving institute (MSI) teaching clean and green technical education to diverse students across the state. Benjamin Franklin’s belief of citizenship lives on in the school’s values of instilling industry-informed education, life-long learning, and civic engagement to their graduates.

About Michael Meyer

Michael Meyer is the author of four critically acclaimed books, including Benjamin Franklin’s Last Bet, as well as articles in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, and many other outlets. A former Peace Corps volunteer, Fulbright scholar, Guggenheim fellow, and Whiting Award winner, Meyer has also received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center, MacDowell, the American Academy in Berlin, and the University of Oxford’s Centre for Life-Writing. He is a professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh, where he teaches nonfiction writing and is the winner of the 2023 Chancellor’s Distinguished Teaching Award. His parents still wish he had followed their footsteps into a career in construction.