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Trustee Chair To Speak At Commencement
Dr. John W. Rowe, chair of the UConn Board of Trustees, will deliver the annual Commencement address to more than 3,000 graduating seniors on Sunday, May 9.
Rowe, chairman and chief executive officer of Aetna Inc., one of the nation's leading health care and related benefits organizations, is an expert on geriatric medicine. He was a professor of medicine and founding director of the Division on Aging at the Harvard Medical School.
Joining Rowe during the dual undergraduate ceremonies are David Macaulay, an artist and illustrator known world-wide, who will receive an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree during the 10 a.m. ceremony, and Linda Darling-Hammond, a professor of education at Stanford
University and former executive director of the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future. She will receive an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree during the 3 p.m. ceremony.
Rowe will speak during both ceremonies, which will take place at the Harry A. Gampel Pavilion.
On Saturday, May 8, students earning master's and doctoral degrees from the University will hear an address from Gene E. Likens, director of the Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, N.Y. An expert in the study of forest, stream, and lake ecosystems, Likens has won dozens of accolades and awards, including the National Medal of Science, which he received during a ceremony at the White House in June 2002. Likens will receive an honorary Doctor of Science degree during the ceremony, which will take place at 3 p.m. at Gampel Pavilion.
He will be joined by Iognáid G. Ó Muircheartaigh (pronounced Ognard O-mer-ca-tee), president of the National University of Ireland, Galway. Ó Muircheartaigh, a statistician, was instrumental in establishing a prestigious center for human rights at University of Ireland. He will receive an honorary Doctor of Science degree.
On Sunday, May 16, future doctors and dentists graduating from the Health Center in Farmington will be addressed by author Francisco Jimenez, who has followed and written about the plight of migrant workers in the United States. He was selected as commencement speaker at the urging of the graduating students, many of whom have participated in a Health Center summer program helping migrant farm workers in Connecticut.
Also during the 1 p.m. ceremony in Farmington, an honorary Doctor of Science degree will be presented to Gerhard H. Giebisch, the Sterling Professor of Cellular and Molecular Physiology at the Yale University School of Medicine, and a former chair of Yale's School of Medicine.
Rounding out UConn's commencements, budding attorneys will be addressed on Sunday, May 23 by Dennis Wayne Archer, mayor of the city of Detroit, Mich., from 1994-2001, and currently chairman of the firm of Dickinson Wright PLLC. A former president of the National League of Cities, Archer also will receive an honorary Doctor of Laws degree during the 10:30 a.m. ceremony, on the grounds of the School of Law, Elizabeth Street, Hartford.
