News Release

Highlights

Sadako Ogata, the United Nations high commissioner for refugees, will be principal speaker at The Johns Hopkins University's 1996 commencement ceremony at 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, May 22. Ogata, since 1991, has been the U.N. official responsible for humanitarian assistance to refugees and for their resettlement in crisis areas including Bosnia, Rwanda, Iraq and Liberia. Last year, her agency was responsible for more than 27 million people.

Former president George Bush will be principal speaker later May 22 at a separate diploma distribution ceremony for seniors graduating from the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences and the Whiting School of Engineering. That ceremony begins at 2:30 p.m.

Details on the main commencement ceremony

The ceremony begins at 9:30 a.m. under a tent on the upper quadrangle at the Homewood campus of the university at 3400 N. Charles Street in Baltimore. High Commissioner Ogata is expected to begin speaking sometime after 10 a.m.

This is the university-wide ceremony at which all Johns Hopkins University degrees are officially conferred. Most diplomas are distributed at separate ceremonies sponsored by individual Hopkins schools (details below).

Ogata is one of four persons who will be awarded the honorary degree of doctor of humane letters at this ceremony. The other recipients:

Sister Kathleen Feeley, S.S.N.D., longtime president of the College of Notre Dame of Maryland.

Norman Hackerman, president emeritus of Rice University and a Baltimore native and holder of bachelor's and doctoral degrees from Johns Hopkins.

William Julius Wilson, sociologist and authority on poverty and race relations, currently at the University of Chicago but soon to move to Harvard University.

Details on the undergraduate diploma ceremony

A separate diploma distribution ceremony for the 787 graduating seniors in the School of Arts and Sciences and the School of Engineering will be held at 2:30 p.m. in the same location as the morning commencement. The speaker will be former president George Bush, who was invited by the senior class. President Bush was awarded an honorary degree from Johns Hopkins in 1990, during a celebration of the 100th anniversary of Johns Hopkins medicine, and so will not receive a degree from the university on this occasion.

This ceremony is the occasion on which the seniors, who officially graduated when degrees were conferred in the morning ceremony, receive their Johns Hopkins diplomas.

No special credentialing is anticipated for either ceremony, but we would appreciate knowing you intend to come so we can hold sufficient space in the media section. Call the contacts listed above; also, please call if you would like directions to campus faxed to you. The site will be under a tent and will not be changed in case of bad weather. A mult box will be available.

Note: Other Johns Hopkins University divisions will hold diploma ceremonies, or other commencement-related activities, at the following times and locations. Several speakers are prominent figures and potentially newsworthy. Contact the appropriate public affairs office for information.

ROTC Commissioning Ceremony: 10 a.m., May 21, Shriver Hall, Homewood campus, Baltimore. Speaker: Maj. Gen. Joseph W. Rigby, director, Army Digitization Office, Pentagon.

G.W.C. Whiting School of Engineering diploma ceremony (master's degree and doctoral recipients): 7 p.m., May 21, Gilman Quadrangle, Homewood campus, Baltimore. Speaker: Dr. John Evans, president, COMSAT Laboratories.

School of Hygiene and Public Health diploma ceremony: 2 p.m., May 21, Shriver Auditorium, Homewood campus, Baltimore. Speaker: David Kessler, commissioner, U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies diploma ceremony: 3 p.m., May 22, Lincoln Theatre, 1215 U St., N.W., Washington, D.C. Speaker: Madeleine Albright, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

School of Medicine diploma ceremony: 3 p.m., May 22, Kraushaar Auditorium, Goucher College, Towson, Md. Speaker: William Styron, author of Sophie's Choice and of Darkness Visible, a personal account of his struggle with depression.

School of Nursing diploma ceremony: 4 p.m., May 22, Turner Auditorium, Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, Baltimore. Speaker: State Sen. Paula C. Hollinger.

School of Arts and Sciences diploma ceremony (master's degree recipients): 6:30 p.m., May 22, Shriver Hall, Homewood campus, Baltimore. Speaker: Former Rep. Helen D. Bentley, R-Md.

School of Continuing Studies diploma ceremony: 7:30 p.m., May 22, Gilman Quadrangle, Homewood campus, Baltimore. Speaker: William Julius Wilson, sociologist.

Peabody Conservatory: 8 p.m., May 22, Miriam A. Friedberg Concert Hall, the Peabody Institute, 1 E. Mount Vernon Place, Baltimore. Speaker: Wynton Marsalis, jazz trumpeter, composer and arranger. Marsalis will also receive the George Peabody Medal for Outstanding Contributions to Music in America.