Dartmouth, MA, resident Tyler Machado graduates from Saint Michael's College, earns a top award

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Saint Michael's instructor Michael Donoghue presents award to Tyler Machado

COLCHESTER, VT (05/17/2010)(readMedia)-- Tyler Machado, son of Catherine Santos of Dartmouth, Mass., earned a bachelor's degree in journalism and mass communication, cum laude, from Saint Michael's College, during ceremonies May 13, 2010, on the campus of the liberal arts residential Catholic college in the Burlington area of Vermont.

At a graduation-week banquet, Machado a 2006 graduate of Dartmouth High School, also was awarded the John D. Donoghue Award, presented annually to a student, faculty member or administrator who has provided strong support, leadership and commitment to one of the college's student publications. The award is named for the late John D. Donoghue '32, who founded the college's student newspaper and was the Journalism Department's first chairman.

In presenting the award, Michael Donoghue, son of John Donoghue and a journalism adjunct at the college as well as longtime reporter for the Burlington Free Press, praised Machado as a "dedicated, hardworking member of the student media at Saint Michael's for four years." He noted that Machado was selected to participate in a year-long research and development project called the 21st Century News Challenge, collaborating with 20 undergraduate journalism majors from six universities to design a prototype for an online news platform to increase participatory journalism in underserved communities. The site Machado developed with classmates earned an invitation to present their concept for a secure alternative-to-social-networking news Web site for 10-to-14 year olds at a meeting of news executives in Toronto in 2007.

As tech editor of the student online magazine The Echo, Machado was "one of the most technologically savvy students the publication has ever seen," redesigning the magazine to highlight multimedia storytelling and improve user-friendliness, Donoghue said. He acknowledged Machado's "well-developed aesthetic for graphic design" and skillful redesign of The Echo's commentary site. His creative writing and columns had "mature and thought-provoking viewpoints," Donoghue said, and Machado blogged for the Burlington's alternative newspaper Seven Days.

Amartya Sen was the featured speaker at the Saint Michael's 103nd commencement. Winner of the 1998 Nobel economics prize for his work on welfare economics, Sen is Thomas W. Lamont University Professor, and Professor of Economics and Philosophy at Harvard University, and was until recently the Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. A prolific author, his work has addressed famine, human development theory, welfare economics, poverty, gender inequality and more.

Called "the conscience of the profession" among economists, Sen addressed the 505 students receiving bachelor's degrees and 52 present to receive master's degrees. He said 18th Century economist Adam Smith is often misread and would not champion totally free markets as most claim he would, since a market economy can reap disaster when unregulated. "The implicit faith in the wisdom of the stand-alone market economy, which is largely responsible for the removal of the established regulations in the United States, turned a blind eye towards the activities of [Smith's} 'prodigals and projectors,'" he said, advocating "an appropriate combination of activities of the market and of the state."

For this year's commencement, students wore environmentally "green" recyclable graduation robes for the first time.

Learn What Matters at Saint Michael's College, The Edmundite Catholic liberal arts college, www.smcvt.edu . Saint Michael's provides education with a social conscience, producing graduates with the intellectual tools to lead successful, purposeful lives that will contribute to peace and justice in our world. Founded in 1904 by the Society of St. Edmund and headed by President John J. Neuhauser, Saint Michael's College is located three miles from Burlington, Vermont, one of America's top college towns. It is identified by the Princeton Review as one of the nation's Best 371 Colleges, and will be included in the 2011 Fiske Guide to Colleges. Saint Michael's is one of only 270 colleges and universities nationwide, one of only 20 Catholic colleges, with a Phi Beta Kappa chapter. Saint Michael's has 1,900 undergraduate students, some 500 graduate students and 100 international students. Saint Michael's students and professors have received Rhodes, Woodrow Wilson, Pickering, Guggenheim, Fulbright, and other grants. The college is one of the nation's Best Liberal Arts Colleges as listed in the 2009 U.S. News & World Report rankings.

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