435th Convocation June 10-11

More than 2,000 degrees will be conferred upon students and three eminent scholars will receive honorary degrees during Spring Convocation ceremonies Friday, June 10, and Saturday, June 11, in Rockefeller Memorial Chapel.

Colin Lucas, Dean of the Social Sciences Division and Professor in History, will deliver the convocation address, "Knowing the Past, Inventing the Future," at each of the four sessions.

Graduating seniors James Burwell, Jerusha Matsen and Omar McRoberts will deliver remarks at the College convocation on Saturday.

Degree candidates will assemble in the Laboratory Schools' Sunny Gymnasium, 5823 S. Kenwood Ave. Candidates not present in the gym at least 45 minutes before the ceremonies begin will not be permitted to march.

Gowns may be obtained in the west lounge on the second floor of Ida Noyes Hall between 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. today, June 9; between 8:30 a.m. and 8:30 p.m. Friday, June 11; and between 8:30 and 9 a.m. Saturday, June 12.

Honorary degrees will be awarded to three of the most distinguished scholars in their fields -- psychologist Paul Ekman, statistician and mathematician Ulf Grenander and urban geographer Elisabeth Lichtenberger -- at the convocation for the graduate divisions and the Pritzker School of Medicine on Friday afternoon.

Ekman, professor of psychology and director of the Human Interaction Laboratory at Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute, University of California-San Francisco, will receive a Doctor of Humane Letters degree. He is one of the nation's premier researchers on nonverbal behavior, deceit and emotion, and his work has laid the basis for new fields of study in psychology.

Grenander, the L. Herbert Ballou University Professor at Brown University, will receive a Doctor of Science degree. Grenander has been making seminal contributions in the fields of statistics and applied mathematics since the 1950s. His work has integrated elements and structures from various subdisciplines, creating new paradigms that are original, profound and aesthetic.

Lichtenberger, professor of geography at the University of Vienna and one of the foremost geographers in Europe, will receive a Doctor of Humane Letters degree. Her work, focusing on modern urbanism and the sociopolitical underpinnings of regional development in Europe, has led to a new form of interdisciplinary research that builds on statistical relationships, map analysis of areal patterns, historical evolution, social and political structures, environmental factors and geographical interrelationships.

The schedule for the 435th Convocation ceremonies is as follows:

First session, Friday, 10 a.m.: Divinity School, School of Social Service Administration, Law School and Irving B. Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies.

Second session, Friday, 3 p.m.: Humanities, Social Sciences, Physical Sciences and Biological Sciences divisions; Pritzker School of Medicine. Includes presentation of honorary degrees and graduate teaching awards.

Third session, Friday, 7 p.m.: Graduate School of Business.

Fourth session, Saturday, 10 a.m.: College. Includes presentation of undergraduate teaching awards.

A total of 2,065 degrees will be conferred, including 673 bachelor's degrees, 591 M.B.A.s, 420 master's degrees, 179 J.D.s, 108 M.D.s and 93 Ph.D.s.

The chapel doors will open 45 minutes before each ceremony begins. The College ceremony will be televised live in Mandel Hall, Breasted Hall and Max Palevsky Cinema. The third session, for graduating GSB students, will be broadcast live in Mandel Hall. Admission to all locations for all ceremonies is by ticket only.

For more information, call Mary Albee at 702-2513.