News Release

Note: There will be a press section near the front of the tent, to the left of the stage.

About the Speakers

William R. Brody took office Aug. 26, 1996, as Hopkins' 13th president. He returned to Hopkins from the University of Minnesota, where he had been provost of the Academic Medical Center since 1994. Previously, while director of the Department of Radiology at the Hopkins School of Medicine and radiologist-in-chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital, he chaired a university-wide task force--the Committee for the 21st Century--that spent nearly two years examining how Johns Hopkins should refocus its efforts in light of new and foreseeable challenges.

Elizabeth Dole worked in the Nixon administration, first on consumer affairs, then for five years on the Federal Trade Commission. In the Reagan administration, she became the first woman to be appointed secretary of transportation. In 1989 she was appointed secretary of labor by President Bush. In 1991, she was named president of the American Red Cross.

About the Graduating Class

The total number of earned degrees, certificates and diplomas awarded to full-time and part-time graduates is expected to be 4,865, as of May 1, 1998:

About the Ceremonies

The university--and each of its eight academic divisions--holds a commencement event at which students receive their diplomas:

University-wide Commencement Ceremony

May 21, 9:30 a.m., Gilman Quadrangle (between library and Gilman Hall), Homewood
Speaker: University president William R. Brody
This is the ceremony at which all 1998 university degrees are conferred by the president of the university. The students who receive their diplomas on stage, however, are doctoral recipients from the university's Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, the G.W.C Whiting School of Engineering, the School of Continuing Studies, the School of Public Health, the School of Nursing, the School of Medicine (PhD.s only), Peabody Institute and the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies.
   This ceremony also recognizes the new members of the Society of Scholars and is the occasion at which the university confers honorary degrees of doctor of humane letters.

This year's honorary degree recipients include:

Elizabeth Dole (see above; she will receive her degree at the undergraduate ceremony at 2:30 p.m.)

Rahmi Mustafa Koç
The son of one of Turkey's premier businessmen, Koç was born to a dual obligation: to develop the enterprises his father founded and to become a leading citizen. He completed his education at Hopkins in the 1950s and returned to Turkey, working with Koç Holding, the family business known as Turkey's largest and best-managed enterprise--employing 36,000 people and guiding more than 125 individual companies. The Koç family has enhanced Turkey's prosperity by sponsoring public projects including a hospital, a museum and a university founded and entirely funded by his family. He also has assisted Turkish students studying at the Johns Hopkins Bologna Center.

Corbin Gwaltney
Gwaltney's weekly publication, the Chronicle of Higher Education, is the primary news source for academic professionals throughout the country. His love of higher education began at Hopkins, where he earned a bachelor's degree in 1943. After teaching in the English Department, he was founding editor of Johns Hopkins Magazine from 1949 to 1959. He began to publish a weekly newsletter called the 15-minute Report, which, by 1966, had spawned the Chronicle of Higher Education, of which he has been editor-in-chief for the past 22 years.

Sam Shapiro
The School of Public Health's Sam Shapiro began studying infant mortality in the 1940s, a time when there was no field of research that investigated the relationship between health care systems and patient outcomes. The research methodologies he developed, which came to fruition in his landmark work on mammography, have become the foundation for an entire research discipline. American health policy makers and the health care industry have come to rely on the research he pioneered. The breast cancer study produced recommendations for routine mammography that have helped thousands of women survive breast cancer. At 84, he continues to conduct an astonishing range of research, which continually reveals new ways to organize services so that those who need care receive it.

Leon Schlossberg
Considered for more than two decades, the greatest living medical illustrator, Schlossberg is chief medical illustrator for the Department of Surgery at Johns Hopkins, conveying pioneering techniques from Johns Hopkins' operating rooms to surgeons throughout the world. He received his training in the Hopkins Department of Art as Applied to Medicine, studying under Max Bridel, who brought the field to the United States early in this century. But for a brief stint in the Navy during World War II, he has been serving faculty and students ever since. His love of anatomy has produced the exquisite Atlas of Functional Anatomy. First published in 1975, the atlas reached its fourth edition last year and exists in 11 languages.

Rita Süssmuth
Süssmuth is an example of the engaged citizen-scholar. From her position as a professor of education at the University of Dortmund and director of the Research Institute on Women and Society in Hannover, she was called by her political party to become minister for family, youth and health, and later to become President of the Federal German Parliament. She has advanced controversial positions so ardently that she has persuaded not only her own party but opposing parties as well to act on issues of social justice. She has argued for politically unpopular views, defending the law of asylum, urging acknowledgement of the Oder-Niesse river as the border between Poland and Germany, and questioning a chosen leader of her own party due to his past association with National Socialism. She has advanced women's issues, making it easier for women to raise families while maintaining economic independence.

Undergraduate Diploma Award Ceremony
May 21, 2:30 p.m., Gilman Quadrangle (between library and Gilman Hall), Homewood
Speaker: Elizabeth Dole
This is the ceremony at which the seniors from the schools of Arts and Sciences and Engineering, who officially graduated when degrees were conferred in the morning ceremony, cross the stage to receive their diplomas.

G.W.C. Whiting School of Engineering Master's Diploma Award Ceremony
May 20, 7 p.m., Gilman Quadrangle, Homewood
Speaker: TBA

Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences Master's Diploma Award Ceremony
May 21, 6:30 p.m., Shriver Hall, Homewood
Speaker: William Clinger, Hopkins alumnus and former U.S. representative from Pennsylvania's 5th Congressional District

School of Continuing Studies Graduate Diploma Award Ceremony
May 21, 7:30 p.m., Gilman Quadrangle, Homewood
Speaker: Nancy Grasmick, superintendent, Maryland State Department of Education

School of Hygiene and Public Health Diploma Award Ceremony
May 20, 2 p.m., Shriver Hall, Homewood
Speaker: Harold Varmus, M.D., director, U.S. National Institutes of Health

School of Medicine Diploma Award Ceremony
May 20, 1 p.m., Kraushaar Auditorium, Goucher College, Baltimore
Speaker: Daniel Nathans, MD, University Professor of molecular biology and genetics at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and former interim president of Johns Hopkins University.

Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies Diploma Award Ceremony
May 21, 3 p.m., Lincoln Theater, 1215 "U" Street, N.W., Washington, D.C.
Speaker: John Browne, group chief executive, The British Petroleum Co.

Peabody Diploma Award Ceremony
May 21, 8 p.m., Miriam A. Friedberg Concert Hall, Peabody Conservatory
Speaker: Anne Brown, teacher, performer, and originator of the role of Bess in Gershwin's Porgy and Bess

School of Nursing Diploma Award Ceremony
May 21, 4 p.m., Turner Auditorium, School of Medicine
Speaker: Ada Davis, PhD., R.N., CANP, associate professor, director, Johns Hopkins School of Nursing baccalaureate program