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Lafayette will grant 563 degrees to 549 graduating seniors at the College’s 171st Commencement Saturday, May 20.
The event will feature an address by Deborah Bial, founder and president of the Posse Foundation, 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.
Click here for information for parents on Commencement.
Also scheduled for Saturday is a Baccalaureate service at 10:30 a.m. with an address by Robert I. Weiner, Thomas Roy and Lura Forrest Jones Professor of History and Jewish chaplain. Both the Baccalaureate and Commencement ceremonies will be held on the Quad. In case of rain, they will be held in Allan P. Kirby Sports Center. If there is a change in the location of the ceremonies based on weather, the information will be available by calling (610) 330-5809.
Lafayette President Dan Weiss will award honorary doctorates to Bial (Doctor of Public Service); Gregory Farrington, president of Lehigh University (Doctor of Letters); John Hope Franklin, James B. Duke Professor Emeritus of History at Duke University (Doctor of Humane Letters); and Mulgrew Miller, the internationally acclaimed jazz pianist and resident of Easton (Doctor of Performing Arts).
Nangula Shejavali ’06 will deliver farewell remarks for the class of 2006. She is the recipient of the George Wharton Pepper Prize, awarded to the senior who “most closely represents the Lafayette ideal.” Shejavali, of Windhoek, Namibia, is graduating with a bachelor of arts (A.B.) degree with majors in international affairs and Africana studies.
The first students to receive their diplomas will be Teresa Cridge ’06, Laura Hagopian ’06, and Joshua Porter ’06, who achieved the highest cumulative grade-point average in the class. Cridge, of Newtown, Pa., will receive an A.B. with majors in biology and government & law. Hagopian, of Chelmsford, Mass., is graduating with an A.B. with a major in chemistry. Porter, of Pittstown, N.J., will receive a bachelor of science in electrical and computer engineering.
Melissa Spitz ’06, co-chair of the Class of 2006 Gift Committee, will present the class gift. Spitz, of Livingston, N.J., is receiving an A.B. degree with a major in art. The other co-chair, Andrew Brown ’06, originally of Ontario, Canada, is graduating with an A.B. with a major in economics and business. The percentage of graduates contributing to this year’s class gift is an all-time high. The gift supports stipends enabling students to serve summer internships.
Two retiring members of the faculty who have been elected to emeritus status will be recognized by Weiss, Susan L. Blake, professor of English, and Shyamal K. Majumdar, Gideon R., Jr., and Alice L. Kreider Professor of Biology.
A retiring trustee who has been elected to emeritus status, Walter A. Scott ’59, will be recognized by Alan R. Griffith ’64, chair of the board of trustees.
Weiss will confer degrees upon the graduates and will deliver farewell remarks. Assisting in presenting diplomas will be James Woolley, Frank Lee and Edna M. Smith Professor of English and clerk of the faculty, and Rose Marie L. Bukics, Thomas Roy and Lura Forrest Jones Professor of Economics and Business and acting dean of studies.
Majumdar, the senior member of the faculty, will lead the academic procession as Bearer of the Mace. James F. Krivoski, vice president for student affairs, will marshal the class of 2006.
Provost June Schlueter will march at the head of the faculty. Trustee emeritus Edward A. Jesser Jr. ’39 will lead the trustees and the platform party.
John P. Colatch, College chaplain and director of religious life, will deliver the invocation and give the benediction. Nina Gilbert, Lafayette’s director of choral activities, will lead the singing of “America the Beautiful.” Members of the Lafayette Choir, led by Gilbert, will lead the singing of “The Alma Mater.”