Commencement Week at Connecticut State University System Begins Friday; Commencement Speakers include Constitutional Scholar, Astronaut, Microbiologist and Mystery Writer
HARTFORD, Conn., May 17, 2007 -- The Connecticut State University System – which includes Central, Eastern, Southern and Western Connecticut State Universities, will hold commencement ceremonies beginning Friday, May 18 and continuing through next Friday, May 25. Commencement speakers at the four universities, which together compose Connecticut’s largest state university system with approximately 36,000 students, include a trailblazing astronaut, financial industry leader, constitutional scholar, microbiologist and noted mystery writer.
Highlights of the commencement ceremonies and speakers:
Central Connecticut State University will hold commencement exercises for undergraduate, graduate and doctoral degree candidates on Saturday, May 19 beginning at 10:30 a.m. at the Hartford Civic Center. This year's commencement speaker is Joseph J. Grano Jr., chairman and CEO of Centurion Holdings LLC. In addition to being one of the financial service industry’s leading executives, Grano, former Chairman of UBS PaineWebber, is involved in a wide range of educational and philanthropic endeavors. Grano is a veteran of the U.S. Special Forces (Green Berets), and attained the rank of Captain in the Army. In 2002, he was appointed by the President to serve as the Chairman of the Homeland Security Advisory Council
Some 1,375 students are eligible to participate in this year’s undergraduate commencement exercises. They will be joined by 512 students who are eligible for graduate degrees, including six candidates who will be awarded CCSU’s Doctorate of Education (Ed.D.) in Educational Leadership.
Eastern Connecticut State University will confer 1,053 undergraduate and 114 master’s degrees during its 116th Commencement on Sunday, May 20 beginning at 1:45 p.m. on the Windham Regional Technical High School athletic field, across from Eastern’s Sports Center. In case of inclement weather, the ceremony will be held in the Francis E. Geissler Gymnasium in the Sports Center.
U.S. Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro (D-3rd District) will deliver the keynote address. During the ceremony, Eastern will bestow an honorary degree on Christopher C. Dahl, president of the State University of New York (SUNY) at Geneseo. Dahl is also former president of the Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges (COPLAC); Eastern is one of 24 members of this national advocacy group for liberal arts education.
Rep. DeLauro was first elected to Congress from Connecticut’s 3rd District in 1990 and is currently serving her ninth term. She sits on the influential House Appropriations and Budget Committee and also serves as chairwoman of the Agriculture-FDA Appropriations Subcommittee and as a member of the Labor-Health and Human Services-Education and Commerce-Justice-Science Appropriations subcommittees.
Western Connecticut State University will hold its Undergraduate Commencement at 10:30 a.m. on Sunday, May 20 at the Westside Athletic Facility, Westside campus. Harold Schramm, professor of English and Justice and Law Administration, and a 30 -year member of the Western faculty, will be the commencement speaker. A constitutional scholar, Schramm plans to discuss the rights and responsibilities granted under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Schramm’s career as an educator began in the late 1960’s as an assistant professor of English at Central. He has been a member of the faculty at Western since 1969. He is a graduate of the College of the Holy Cross and the University of Delaware, where he earned his master’s and doctorate degrees. Western expects 650 students to graduate at this ceremony.
Western’s Graduate Commencement will be held at 7 p.m. on Friday, May 18 in the Ives Concert Hall on the Midtown campus in Danbury. President James W. Schmotter will deliver the commencement speech. Schmotter has been President at Western since August 2004, and has been in the academic arena for more than a quarter of a century. His teaching career started at Northwestern University and administrative career at the State University of New York at Binghamton. Schmotter spent 14 years at Cornell University's Johnson Graduate School of Management, and has served as dean of the College of Business and Economics at Lehigh University, s dean of the Haworth College of Business and professor of management at Western Michigan University.
Former astronaut Mae C. Jemison, who was the first woman of color to go into space, as a mission specialist aboard the space shuttle Endeavour on September 12, 1992, will deliver Southern Connecticut State University’s undergraduate commencement address on Friday, May 25. The ceremony will begin at 10:15 a.m. at the Connecticut Tennis Center in Westville.
Her space flight was one of a series of accomplishments for Mae Jemison, who is now founder and president of two technology companies. Born in Decatur, Alabama and raised in Chicago, she entered Stanford University at the age of sixteen on a scholarship. Jemison graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering and fulfilled the requirements for an A.B. in African and Afro-American studies. She earned her doctorate in medicine at Cornell University Medical College.
Jemison served as a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) astronaut for six years. As the science mission specialist on the STS-47 Spacelab J flight, a US/Japan joint mission, she conducted experiments in life sciences, material sciences, and was a co-investigator of the Bone Cell Research experiment. Currently, Jemison is building a new business, BioSentient Corporation, a medical technology company that develops and markets mobile equipment worn to monitor the body’s vital signs and train people to respond favorably in stressful situations.
Both of Southern’s graduate commencement ceremonies will be held on Thursday, May 24, in the John Lyman Center for the Performing Arts. The schools of Arts and Sciences, Business, and Health and Human Services will hold their ceremony at 2 p.m., and the schools of Education and Communication, Information & Library Science will hold their ceremony at 7 p.m. Judith Kelman, a master’s degree graduate of Southern and an award-winning mystery writer who has been described by one critic as the “master of psychological suspense,” will deliver the afternoon commencement address on May 24.
A writer of 18 novels that have sold more than 2 million copies worldwide, Judith Kelman is equally recognized as a mentor for aspiring authors through her website “Writer’s Room” that gives advice on how to write and get one’s works published. Kelman received a master’s degree in communication disorders from Southern in 1977 after earning a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University and a master’s degree in psychology from New York University. For 15 years, she had a successful career as a teacher of handicapped children, a speech-language pathologist, and an educational consultant. Kelman’s 18 novels have been translated into nine languages and her latest, “Backward in High Heels,” is being published this month.
Dr. Curtis L. Patton, an internationally renowned microbiologist and professor emeritus at Yale University, will deliver Southern’s evening graduate commencement address, also on May 24, at 7 p.m.
Curtis Patton has spent his life studying tropical diseases. His seminal research into the parasitic protozoa that cause malaria has contributed immeasurably to mankind’s expanded understanding of this tropical disease that has plagued civilization since the earliest of times. Born and raised in Alabama, Patton experienced first hand the ravages of malaria when he contracted this mosquito-borne disease in his boyhood. It has served as an impetus for his lifelong research into parasitic tropical diseases and his special focus on the organism that causes malaria. Patton attended Fisk University in Tennessee on a scholarship where he earned a B.A. degree in zoology. He then earned an M.S. degree and Ph.D. at Michigan State University, both in microbiology. Shortly after earning his Ph.D., he began his 36-year career at the Yale School of Medicine, from which he retired in 2006.
An elected Fellow of the American Society of Infectious Diseases, Patton has shared his expertise in microbiology and higher education diversification by serving on numerous advisory committees including those of the National Institutes of Health, the National Research Council and the World Health Organization. Patton has also received national recognition for his critical work in promoting diversity and inclusion of traditionally underrepresented populations in higher education and for his focus on health disparities in these populations.
Media Contacts
Bernard Kavaler, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Public Affairs, CSUS
860.493.0093, kavalerb@so.ct.edu
Mark McLaughlin, Associate Vice President of Marketing and Communications, CCSU
860.832.0065, McLaughlinM@ccsu.edu
Edward Osborn, Director of University Relations, ECSU
860.465.5043, Osborne@easternct.edu
Patrick Dilger, Director of Public Affairs, SCSU
203.392.6588, dilgerp1@southernct.edu
Paul Steinmetz, Interim Director of University Relations, WCSU
203.837.8771, Steinmetzp@wcsu.edu |
