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News Release

Last modified: Monday, April 19, 2010

Indiana University to celebrate commencement at eight campuses

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 19, 2010

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Michael A. McRobbie, president of Indiana University, will preside over eight days of May commencement ceremonies at eight campuses where 17,952 students will be eligible to receive IU degrees. Additionally, 1,895 Purdue University degrees will be awarded on those IU campuses with Purdue programs, mostly in separate ceremonies.

IU Bloomington will celebrate its 181st commencement ceremonies where 8,346 degrees will be conferred. For the first time, there will be a separate graduate ceremony for those students receiving master's and doctoral degrees (https://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/12514.html). It is scheduled for May 7 (Friday), 3 p.m., in Assembly Hall, with the procession of graduates beginning at 2:45 p.m. Undergraduate ceremonies will take place May 8 (Saturday), also in Assembly Hall, with the morning session starting at 10 a.m. and the afternoon session at 3 p.m. The processions of graduates begin 45 minutes prior to those times.

Elinor Ostrom is commencement speaker at the graduate ceremony. The Distinguished Professor and Arthur F. Bentley Professor of Political Science in the College of Arts and Sciences at IU Bloomington, Ostrom became the first woman to receive the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, also known as the Nobel Prize in Economics, in December 2009. (https://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/14074.html)

Quincy Jones Jr. will address both sessions of undergraduate students. Jones, a legendary musical composer and arranger, record and television producer, magazine publisher and trumpeter, has earned nearly 80 Grammy Award nominations and has received the gramophone statuette 27 times, a number which includes the Grammy Legend Award in 1991. Jones also will receive an honorary Doctor of Music degree from IU. (https://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/14000.html)

This year, undergraduate commencement ceremonies will include graduating student speakers as a new feature. John (Jack) McCarthy will speak at the morning ceremony, and Natsuki Atagi will speak at the afternoon ceremony. McCarthy, from Indianapolis, will receive a B.S. in business with concentrations in economic consulting and public policy analysis from the Business Honors Program with minors in economics and French. Atagi is from Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., and she will receive a B.A. in psychology with departmental honors and a B.A. in gender studies with a minor in Spanish.

IU commencement information and the number of graduates eligible for degrees at each, including Purdue University degrees, are:

• Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, May 9 (Sunday), 11:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m., Halls A-B-C of the Convention Center. Degrees will be awarded to 5,956 students, including 954 from Purdue. The overall total also includes graduates from the IU Columbus campus, where there are 101 IU graduates and 44 Purdue graduates.
• Indiana University Southeast, May 10 (Monday), 4 p.m., at the Ogle Center Amphitheater. In case of rain, two ceremonies, one at 1 p.m. and the second at 4 p.m., will be held in the IU Southeast Activities Building. Degrees will be awarded to 1,046 students, 996 from IU and 50 from Purdue.
• Indiana University Kokomo, May 11 (Tuesday), 10:30 a.m., to the east of Virgil and Elizabeth Hunt Hall. In case of rain, two ceremonies will be held in Havens Auditorium at 10:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. Degrees will be awarded to 503 students, 461 from IU and 42 from Purdue.
• Indiana University South Bend, May 11 (Tuesday), 6 p.m., in the Joyce Center at the University of Notre Dame. Degrees will be awarded to 1,031 students, 994 from IU and 37 from Purdue.
• Indiana Universtiy-Purdue University Fort Wayne, May 12 (Wednesday), 7 p.m., in Fort Wayne's Memorial Coliseum. Degrees will be awarded to 1,800 students, 1,051 from IU and 749 from Purdue.
• Indiana University Northwest, May 13 (Thursday), 4 p.m. (CDT), at the Genesis Center in Gary. Degrees will be awarded to 812 IU students.
• Indiana University East, May 14 (Friday), 6 p.m., in the Tiernan Center at Richmond High School. Degrees will be awarded to 362 students, 334 from IU and 28 from Purdue.

For Bloomington, the number of graduates includes degree candidates for May, June and August, and graduate students whose degrees have been or will be awarded on a monthly basis from January 2010 to July 2010. For other campuses, the figures include degree recipients from December 2009 and candidates for May, June and August 2010. Those numbers also include graduate students whose degrees have been or will be conferred during the 2009-2010 academic year.

Honorary Degrees

Six individuals will be recognized with honorary degrees during various commencement ceremonies. At IU Bloomington, commencement speaker Quincy Jones Jr. will receive an honorary Doctor of Music degree.

At IUPUI, Jane Fortune and Chris Johns will receive honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degrees from IU, while William Plater will receive an honorary degree from Purdue.

• Jane Fortune is a champion of the arts. An author, art historian, and philanthropist, Fortune serves on the national advisory board of the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA), and she has founded two organizations that support restoring and promoting artwork created by women: the NMWA's Florence Committee and Advancing Women Artists.
• Editor-in-chief for National Geographic, Johns is the first field photographer to hold the position. Under his leadership, National Geographic has covered a number of important stories, including HIV/AIDS, climate change, the slaughtering of gorillas in Africa, and the medical care received by U.S. troops injured in Iraq.
• Purdue will award an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree to William Plater, a scholar and a visionary leader in higher education. Plater is a professor of English and philanthropic studies at IUPUI, has provided leadership there through many administrative roles from assistant dean and assistant director to acting chancellor, dean of faculties and executive vice chancellor. He also chaired the President's Council on the Arts and Sciences for IU system-wide for 12 years.

At IPFW Graham Richard will receive an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from IU. Richard served as mayor of Fort Wayne for eight years from 2000 to 2008, was named the 2007 government Leader of the Year by the Indiana State Chamber of Commerce and was an Indiana state senator from 1974 to 1990.

Robert Meeks will receive an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from IU during commencement ceremonies at IUSB. Meeks served as Indiana state senator from 1988 to 2008. He played a large role in helping to secure funding for the IU South Bend campus to build campus housing, to renovate the IU South Bend Education and Arts Building and the new IU Medical Education Center that is shared with the University of Notre Dame.

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