For thousands of Johns Hopkins students, a journey
ends this week as another begins. On
Thursday morning, President Ronald Daniels
will offer his first universitywide commencement address
and confer degrees and certificates on a record-high 6,776
JHU scholars.
The universitywide commencement
forms the centerpiece for this week's various ceremonies
that formally conclude JHU's 133rd academic year.
The ceremony, to be held at 9:15 a.m. on Thursday, May
21, will feature the conferring of all
degrees; recognize the new members of the Society of
Scholars, who will be inducted on May 20; and
bestow honorary degrees upon three of this year's five
recipients: William Goodwin, founder,
president and chairman of CCA Industries and founder of the
Commonwealth Foundation for Cancer
Research; Richard J. Johns, a pioneer of biomedical
engineering who launched the renowned
department in the field at Johns Hopkins; and Rep. Tom
Lantos, a longtime Democratic congressman
from California and the only Holocaust survivor to serve in
the U.S. House of Representatives, who will
be honored posthumously.
Also this week, all the university's academic
divisions will hold diploma award ceremonies
featuring keynote speakers selected by each school.
Ceremonies will include the announcement of
awards that recognize the contributions and achievements of
students and faculty.
The universitywide commencement, Homewood
undergraduate diploma ceremonies and several
other diploma ceremonies will be held on Homewood Field.
The stadium holds 8,500 people--no tickets
necessary. In the event of rain, ceremonies will go on if
possible. (If it does become necessary to
cancel or curtail any of the ceremonies, announcements will
be made on the university Web site and on
the weather emergency line at 410-516-7781.) Other
ceremonies will take place in venues throughout
Baltimore and in Washington, D.C.
Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the U.S. House of
Representatives and a Maryland native, will address
seniors graduating from the schools of Arts and Sciences
and Engineering at their diploma ceremony
at 1:45 p.m. on Thursday, May 21. She will also be awarded
an honorary degree from Johns Hopkins at
this ceremony, as will former Johns Hopkins President
William R. Brody, who ended his 12-year tenure
in March. Brody is now president of the Salk Institute for
Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif.
During this event, an anticipated 1,097 seniors from
the schools of Arts and Sciences and
Engineering, who will officially have graduated when
degrees were conferred in the morning ceremony,
will cross the stage to shake hands with the president.
Pelosi has represented California's Eighth District in
the House of Representatives since 1987.
In 2002, her party colleagues elected her Democratic leader
of the House, making her the first
woman to lead a major party in the U.S. Congress. Before
being elected majority leader, she served as
Democratic whip for one year and was responsible for the
party's legislative strategy. She was elected
speaker on Jan. 4, 2007.
During her time in office, Pelosi has championed
education, environmental stewardship, worker
protection and health care, including women's health and
the creation of a nationwide health-tracking
network to examine the links between environmental
pollutants and chronic disease. A strong
proponent of increased investments in health research,
Pelosi secured funding to double the budget
for the National Institutes of Health.
Her father, Thomas D'Alesandro Jr., served as mayor of
Baltimore for 12 years, after
representing the city for five terms in Congress. Her
brother, Thomas D'Alesandro III, also served as
mayor of Baltimore.
The Bloomberg School of Public Health's speaker will
be Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David
Oshinsky, the Jack S. Blanton Chair in History and
Distinguished Teaching Professor in the
Department of History at the University of Texas at Austin.
Oshinsky won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in
history for his book Polio: An American Story (Oxford
University Press, 2005). The ceremony will be
held at 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday, May 20, in Meyerhoff
Symphony Hall.
Mark Russell, vice president of engineering,
technology and mission assurance at Raytheon, will
speak at the Whiting School of Engineering's graduate
ceremony, to be held at 6:30 p.m. on
Wednesday, May 20, on Homewood Field. With 2008 sales of
$23.2 billion, Raytheon specializes in
defense, homeland security and other government markets
throughout the world. Russell has published
16 peer-reviewed papers on active electronically steered
arrays and radar systems, missiles, photonic
technology, solid-state transmitters and communications
systems. He holds 36 patents in the areas of
microwave and millimeter wave components, high-range
resolution radar applications and missile
seekers.
For its diploma award ceremony, the School of Medicine
will welcome Denton Cooley, surgeon in
chief and president emeritus of the Texas Heart Institute,
and a 1944 graduate of the Johns Hopkins
School of Medicine. Cooley founded the Texas Heart
Institute in 1962. A world-renowned surgeon, he
has pioneered many techniques used in cardiovascular
surgery, including, in 1968, the first successful
human heart transplant in the United States. In 1969, he
became the first heart surgeon to implant
an artificial heart in man. His numerous honors and awards
include the Medal of Freedom, the nation's
highest civilian award. The ceremony will be at 10:30 a.m.
on Friday, May 22, in Meyerhoff Symphony
Hall.
Mary Woolley, president of Research!America, will be
the speaker for the School of Nursing
ceremony, to be held at 2 p.m. on Thursday, May 21, in the
Lyric Opera House. Research!America is
the nation's largest nonprofit public education and
advocacy organization seeking to make medical and
health research a higher national priority. Woolley is an
elected member of the Institute of Medicine
and a fellow of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science. She serves on several
boards and committees, including the governing council of
the Institute of Medicine and the National
Council for Johns Hopkins Nursing.
Richard Parsons, chairman of the board of Citigroup
and former CEO and chairman of the board
at Time Warner, will be the speaker at the Carey Business
School graduate diploma award ceremony,
to be held at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, May 19, in Meyerhoff
Symphony Hall. As president of Time Warner,
Parsons oversaw the company's filmed entertainment and
music businesses, and all corporate staff
functions, including financial activities, legal affairs,
public affairs and administration. Upon being
named chairman of the board at Citigroup, Parsons said that
one of his top priorities is to ensure that
its board remains committed to strong, independent
corporate governance, especially in today's
challenging economic conditions.
The diploma ceremony speaker for the School of
Advanced International Studies will be Ban Ki-
moon, the eighth secretary general of the United Nations.
The event will be held at 3 p.m. on
Thursday, May 21, at Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C.
Ban brings 37 years of service both in
government and on the global stage to his current post.
Prior to his appointment, Ban was minister of
foreign affairs and trade for the Republic of Korea, where
his guiding vision was of a peaceful Korean
peninsula playing an expanding role for peace and
prosperity in the region and the wider world. Ban has
long-standing ties with the United Nations, dating back to
1975, when he worked for the Foreign
Ministry's United Nations Division.
Andrés Alonso, chief executive officer of
Baltimore City Public Schools, will speak at the School
of Education undergraduate and graduate diploma award
ceremony. It will be held at 7:30 p.m. on
Thursday, May 21, on Homewood Field. Alonso was named to
his post in July 2007 after working for
four years at the New York City Department of Education,
where he helped to plan and implement the
reform of the largest educational system in the nation. In
2008, at the end of his first year in
Baltimore, students reached their highest outcomes in state
exams, as well as their highest
graduation rates and lowest dropout rates, across all
categories of students.
The Peabody Conservatory diploma award ceremony
speaker will be Michael Kaiser, president of
the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The
ceremony will take place at 7:30 p.m. on
Thursday, May 21, in Peabody's Friedberg Hall. Kaiser has
been president of the Kennedy Center since
2001, earlier serving as executive director of the Alvin
Ailey Dance Theater Foundation, American
Ballet Theatre and Royal Opera House. He has written four
books, including The Art of the
Turnaround: Creating and Maintaining Healthy Arts
Organizations (2008).
Kaiser will receive the 2009 George Peabody Medal at
the ceremony. Inaugurated in 1981, the
Peabody Institute's highest award honors individuals who
have made exceptional contributions to music
in America.
The Krieger School's master's diploma award ceremony
will feature John Astin, actor, director,
producer and visiting professor of theater in the Krieger
School of Arts and Sciences' Writing
Seminars. An alumnus of Johns Hopkins, he returned to the
university in 2001 to teach acting and
directing and has led a renaissance of the school's theater
program. This academic year, the Johns
Hopkins University Theatre celebrated its fourth full
season in the historic Merrick Barn under the
direction of Astin, best known for his onstage portrayals
of Edgar Allan Poe and for his role as Gomez
Addams in the original Addams Family television series.
Astin recently performed in Ken Ludwig's play
Leading Ladies at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. The
ceremony will be held at 10 a.m. on Friday,
May 22, on Homewood Field.
For more information on all the Johns Hopkins
graduation ceremonies, go to:
www.jhu.edu/commencement.
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