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Lafayette College will grant 518 degrees to 512 graduating seniors at the Collegeâs 165th Commencement, Saturday, May 20, 2000.
The event will feature an address by George F. Will, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author, and will include the awarding of four honorary degrees. The processional will begin at 2:15 p.m. and the program at 2:30 p.m. Also scheduled for that day is a Baccalaureate service at 10:30 a.m. with a sermon by Peter J. Paris, the Elmer G. Homrighausen Professor of Christian Social Ethics at Princeton Theological Seminary.
The ceremonies will be held outdoors on the Skillman Library Plaza. The alternate location in case of rain is Allan P. Kirby Sports Center.
Lafayette President Arthur J. Rothkopf will award honorary degrees to Will (Doctor of Letters); Paris (Doctor of Divinity); Michael H. Danjczek, president and executive director of The Childrenâs Home of Easton, Easton, Pa. (Doctor of Humanities); and Marcia D. Greenberger, founder and co-president of the National Womenâs Law Center, Washington, D.C. (Doctor of Laws).
George Beres of Queensbury, N.Y., recipient of the George Wharton Pepper Prize, awarded to the senior who most closely represents the “Lafayette Ideal,” will deliver farewell remarks for the class of 2000.
Three retiring faculty members who have been elected to emeritus status will be recognized by Rothkopf. They are Bernard Fried, the Gideon R. Jr., and Alice L. Kreider Professor of Biology; David L. Hogenboom, the Marshall R. Metzgar Professor of Physics; and John P. Losee Jr., the James Renwick Hogg Professor of Philosophy.
Two retiring trustees who have been elected to emeritus status will be recognized by Lawrence J. Ramer, chairman of the Board of Trustees. They are Lucy Wilson Benson and Alan D. Pesky, a member of the Class of 1956.
Ramer will make a special presentation to Count Gilbert de Pusy La Fayette, who is a direct descendant of the Marquis de Lafayette through the Marquisâ son, George Washington Lafayette.
Mary Kate McCullen of Havertown, Pa., and Erin F. Rogers of Pittston, Pa., the cochairs of the Class of 2000 gift committee, will present the class gift.
Rothkopf; Christopher W. Gray, the dean of studies; and James Woolley, the Frank Lee and Edna M. Smith Professor of English and clerk of the faculty, will confer the degrees upon the graduates.
Joseph A. Sherma, the John D. and Francis H. Larkin Professor of Chemistry and the senior member of the faculty, will lead the academic procession as Bearer of the Mace. James F. Krivoski, the dean of students, will marshal the Class of 2000. The class officers are Bryce G. Murray of Washington, N.J., president; R. Brent Roberts of Madison, Conn., vice president; Amanda L. Friel of Cape May, N.J., secretary; and Carey L. Mazzoni of Dallas, Pa., treasurer.
Provost June Schlueter will march at the head of the faculty. Trustee Emeritus Herbert P. Harkins, a member of the Class of 1934, will lead the trustees and the platform party.
Gary R. Miller, College chaplain, will deliver the invocation, and Paris will give the benediction. The Lafayette Madrigal Singers, directed by William J. Nayden, Class of 1978, will lead the singing of “America the Beautiful” and the “Alma Mater.”