Wolf Blitzer will address the Canisius University undergraduate Class of 2014 on Saturday, May 17 at 10:00 a.m. in the Koessler Athletic Center, located at the corner of Main Street and Delavan Avenue. The Canisius University Class of 2014 is comprised of 715 students.
A native of Kenmore, NY, Blitzer is CNN’s lead political anchor. He has been with the network for more than two decades. 
Throughout his decades as a journalist, Blitzer has interviewed U.S. Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford. Blitzer also sat down with many foreign leaders - the Dalai Lama, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, former South African President Nelson Mandela, among them.
In January 2013, Blitzer traveled to Cairo, Egypt to interview President Mohamed Morsy at the presidential palace. A few years earlier, he was granted rare access to travel to North Korea with former U.N. Ambassador Bill Richardson. As the only network journalist with the delegation, he took viewers inside the communist, totalitarian regime with reports from the rarely seen streets of Pyongyang and Kim II-sung University. In 1991, Blitzer was also among the first Western reporters invited into KGB headquarters for a rare inside look into the Soviet intelligence apparatus.
Dubbed “Iron Man” by his colleagues, Blitzer has become legendary in the business for his relentless, in-depth and courageous storytelling. He is similarly renowned in Western New York, where he grew up.
A Kenmore native, Blitzer majored in American history at SUNY Buffalo and pursued a master’s of arts degree in international relations from Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC. After graduate school, Blitzer was intrigued by a job
announcement for Reuters News Agency in Tel Aviv. He seized the opportunity and his 18-year
career as a print journalist started. After Reuters, Blitzer became a Washington correspondent for
The Jerusalem Post.
In 1990 Blitzer transitioned from print to broadcast journalism and joined CNN as the
network’s military-affairs correspondent at the Pentagon. He then served as CNN’s senior White
House correspondent covering the Clinton administration.
Today he is CNN’s lead political anchor and a pivotal player in the network’s presidential
election coverage, serving as lead anchor on key primary nights, caucus nights and on CNN’s
Emmy-award-winning election night.
Blitzer is also anchor of “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer” (5:00 p.m. ET), which
provides viewers with in-depth reports about political, international and breaking news stories of the day. In addition, he anchors “Wolf” (1:00 p.m. ET), which focuses on the most important news
from Washington and around the world.
Canisius will confer an honorary doctorate degree upon Wolf Blitzer during undergraduate
commencement ceremonies. Also receiving honorary doctorate degrees are Rev. Edward Durkin,
SJ, principal of NativityMiguel Middle School in Buffalo, Richard ’54 and Jane Griffin. Richard
Griffin is a partner at Kavinoky and Cook LLP and has been involved with several high-profile civil
rights cases throughout his legal career. Jane Griffin is a principal scientist at Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute.
For more information about undergraduate commencement ceremonies, contact the
Office of Public Relations at 716-888-2790.
Canisius is one of 28 Jesuit universities in the nation and the premier private university in
Western New York.
