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On Friday, May 19, 2,634 men and women will enter the Brookings Quadrangle as Washington University students and leave as alumni.
Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton will award the degrees in the University's 139th Commencement ceremony, which begins at 8:30 a.m. Of the 2,634 candidates, 1,327 are undergraduate students and 1,307 are graduate and professional students.
Among the graduate students are 465 who will receive doctoral-level degrees. There are 138 candidates for the doctor of philosophy degree in the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences; 42 for the doctor of science degree in the Henry Edwin Sever Institute of Technology; 181 for the doctor of law degree in the School of Law; and 104 for the doctor of medicine degree in the School of Medicine.
In the event of rain, an abbreviated ceremony will be held in the quadrangle, and souvenir plastic ponchos will be provided. In the event of violent weather, the undergraduate Commencement exercises will move to the Athletic Complex, still beginning at 8:30 a.m. The graduate and professional degrees will be awarded at the regularly scheduled late morning and early afternoon ceremonies of each school. (See schedule)
A decision on moving to the violent weather schedule will be made by 7 a.m. the day of Commencement. This notice and other up-to-the-minute information on Commencement Week activities will be available on the Commencement hotline at 935-4355.
Regardless of weather, guests may choose to watch the ceremony via closed-circuit television in either Brown Hall Auditorium or Edison Theatre.
Civil rights leader Julian Bond will deliver the Commencement address. Bond, chairman of the board of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, has been on the cutting edge of social change for 40 years as an activist who faced jail for his convictions, as a member of the Georgia General Assembly, as a university professor and as a nationally known writer and lecturer.
Honorary degrees also will be awarded. In addition to Bond, who will receive a doctor of laws, recipients are: Michael M. Karl, M.D., a member of the medical school faculty for more than 50 years, doctor of science; the 1986 Nobel laureate in chemistry Yuan T. Lee, Ph.D., doctor of science; revered community leader and Laclede Gas Co. Chairman Emeritus Lee M. Liberman, doctor of humanities; world-renowned sculptor and installation artist Mary Miss, doctor of fine arts; and Alvin J. Siteman, chairman and president of Site Oil Company of Missouri and Flash Oil Corp., doctor of humanities.
Commencement begins with the traditional academic procession into Brookings Quadrangle. Edward N. Wilson, Ph.D., professor of mathematics in Arts & Sciences and chair of the Commencement Committee, will serve as grand marshal and lead the students into the quadrangle. The honorary grand marshal will be Gordon W. Philpott, professor emeritus of general surgery.
About 130 members of the Class of 1950, celebrating their 50th reunion this weekend, will don caps and gowns to march in the procession.
The program will begin with music by the Mighty Mississippi Concert Band of St. Louis, directed by Dan Presgrave, director of instrumental ensembles and lecturer in the Department of Music in Arts & Sciences. Alumna Lori Barrett-Pagano, applied music instructor, will sing "America the Beautiful."
Following the music John F. McDonnell, chairman of the Board of Trustees, will welcome the graduates, and Wrighton will introduce Bond for the Commencement address. After Bond's address, Wrighton, assisted by members of the Board of Trustees, will confer the honorary degrees.
Gabriel Jay Greenbaum, president of the senior class, will give the student Commencement greeting. (See related story)
Conferral of academic degrees follows, with the deans of each of the schools and Edward S. Macias, Ph.D., executive vice chancellor and dean of Arts & Sciences, assisting Wrighton. Then Wrighton will deliver his message to the Class of 2000.
Mark Kent, a bachelor of music degree candidate, will conclude the ceremony by singing the Alma Mater.
Following the ceremony, the University's schools will hold receptions for graduates and their guests.
