Assuredly with more personal mountains still to climb,
thousands of Johns Hopkins students will stop and reflect
this week upon a monumental peak reached. On Thursday
morning, President William R.
Brody will confer degrees and certificates on a
record-high 6,192 JHU scholars.
The universitywide
commencement forms the centerpiece for this week's
various ceremonies that formally conclude JHU's 130th
academic year.
The universitywide commencement and Homewood
undergraduate and SPSBE diploma ceremonies will be held on
Homewood Field; the Krieger School's master's ceremony and
Whiting School's graduate ceremony will be held there this
year as well. The stadium holds 9,000 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.)
The universitywide ceremony, to be held at 9:15 a.m.
on Thursday, May 25, will feature the conferring of all
degrees; recognize the new members of the Society of
Scholars, who will be inducted on May 24; and bestow
honorary degrees upon Carl Taylor, professor emeritus at
the School of Public Health and the "founding father" of
academic international public health; R. Champlin Sheridan,
university trustee emeritus and founder of the Sheridan
Group; and Marie-Claire Alain, the world-renowned organist.
President William R. Brody will deliver the address.
In addition, the university's eight academic divisions
will hold diploma award ceremonies this week featuring
keynote speakers selected by each school. Ceremonies also
will include the announcement of awards that recognize the
contributions and achievements of students and faculty.
Among the speakers will be New York Mayor Michael
Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg L.P. and former chair of
the university's board of trustees; Mohamed ElBaradei,
director of the International Atomic Energy Agency; NASA
administrator Michael Griffin; and Elias Zerhouni, director
of the National Institutes of Health.
Zerhouni 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 25.
The former vice dean of Johns Hopkins' School of
Medicine, Zerhouni now leads the nation's medical research
agency and oversees the NIH's 27 institutes and centers
with more than 17,000 employees and a fiscal year 2006
budget of $28.6 billion. Zerhouni, a well-respected leader
in the fields of radiology and medicine, has spent his
career providing clinical, scientific and administrative
leadership. He was born in Nedroma, Algeria, and came to
the United States at age 24, having earned his medical
degree at the University of Algiers School of Medicine in
1975. Since 2000, he has been a member of the National
Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine. In 1988, he was
a consultant to the World Health Organization and in 1985,
a consultant to the White House under President Ronald
Reagan. He served two stints with Johns Hopkins, from 1979
to 1985, and from 1992 to 2002. Before becoming vice dean,
Zerhouni was chairman of the Radiology Department.
The Krieger School of Arts and Sciences' master's
diploma award ceremony will feature Alice McDermott, an
award-winning novelist and the Richard A. Macksey Professor
in the university's Writing Seminars. It will be held at 10
a.m. on Friday, May 26, on Homewood Field. McDermott's
novel Charming Billy won the 1998 National Book Award. She
is the author of five novels, the latest of which, Child of
My Heart, was a Book-of-the-Month Club Main Selection and a
New York Times Notable Book. Her next novel, After This,
will be published in September.
Michael Griffin, NASA administrator and former head of
the Space Department at the university's Applied Physics
Laboratory, will speak at the Whiting School of
Engineering's graduate ceremony, to be held at 7 p.m. on
Wednesday, May 24, on Homewood Field. Griffin, who earned
bachelor's and master's degrees at Johns Hopkins, began his
duties at NASA in April 2005. As its 11th administrator, he
leads the NASA team and manages its resources to advance
the U.S. vision for space exploration. Before serving as
Space Department head at APL, he was president and CEO of
In-Q-Tel and served in several executive positions within
Orbital Sciences Corp. Earlier in his career, Griffin
served as chief engineer and as associate administrator for
exploration at NASA.
Hopkins' own Pete Peterson will be the speaker at the
School of Professional Studies in Business and Education
undergraduate and graduate diploma award ceremony, to be
held at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, May 25, on Homewood Field.
Peterson, associate dean of the Graduate Division of
Business and Management, will retire this year after more
than 25 years of service to Johns Hopkins.
The diploma ceremony speaker for the Paul H. Nitze
School of Advanced International Studies will be Mohamed
ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic
Energy Agency since 1997 and a member of the organization
since 1984. The ceremony will be at 3 p.m. on Thursday, May
25, at Constitution Hall in Washington. ElBaradei was born
in Cairo, Egypt, and began his career in the Egyptian
Diplomatic Service in 1964. From 1974 to 1978 he was a
special assistant to the foreign minister of Egypt.
In 1980, ElBaradei joined the United Nations and
became a senior fellow in charge of the International Law
Program at the United Nations Institute for Training and
Research. In October 2005, ElBaradei and the IAEA were
jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for efforts "to
prevent nuclear energy from being used for military
purposes and to ensure that nuclear energy for peaceful
purposes is used in the safest possible way." He has
received multiple other awards for his work, including the
Nile Collar, the highest Egyptian decoration.
The School of Medicine will welcome Michael Bloomberg,
the 108th mayor of the City of New York, at its ceremony,
which is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. on Thursday, May 25, in
the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall. Bloomberg was chairman of the
university's board of trustees from 1996 to 2002 and
previously was chairman of the Johns Hopkins Initiative
fundraising campaign.
The founder and CEO of Bloomberg L.P., a worldwide
business news and information company, he has given the
largest single gift in the 125-year history of the Johns
Hopkins Institutions and in all has contributed more than
$107 million to his alma mater. Of the $100 million he gave
to the Johns Hopkins Initiative, which concluded last year,
$35 million was designated for the unrestricted use of what
is now known as the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of
Public Health.
The School of Public Health's diploma award ceremony
speaker will be Paul Farmer, an attending physician in
infectious diseases at Brigham and Women's Hospital in
Boston and medical director of the Clinique Bon Sauveur in
Haiti. Farmer is also a founding director of Partners in
Health, which provides direct health care services and
undertakes research and advocacy activities on behalf of
those who are sick and living in poverty. The ceremony will
be held at 2 p.m. on Wednesday, May 24, in the Meyerhoff
Symphony Hall.
Dean Martha Hill will be the speaker for the School of
Nursing's two graduation ceremonies, scheduled for 1 and
3:30 p.m. on Thursday, May 25, in Shriver Hall on the
Homewood campus. Hill, the school's dean since 2003, is
internationally known for her work developing and testing
strategies to improve hypertension care and control among
urban, underserved African-Americans, particularly young
men.
Pianist and educator Gilbert Kalish will address the
Peabody Conservatory graduates. The ceremony will be held
at 8 p.m. on Thursday, May 25, in the school's Friedberg
Hall. A major figure in American music making, Kalish
studied with Leonard Shure, Julius Hereford and Isabella
Vengerova. He has been the pianist of the Boston Symphony
Chamber Players since 1969 and was a founding member of the
Contemporary Chamber Ensemble. His 30-year partnership with
mezzo-soprano Jan De Gaetani is universally recognized as
one of the most remarkable artistic collaborations of
modern time.
Kalish is currently a professor and head of
performance activities at the State University of New York
at Stony Brook. He has also served on the faculty and as
chairman of the Tanglewood Music Center. His vast catalog
of recordings includes classical works, modern masterwork
compositions and original compositions. At the ceremony, he
will be awarded the George Peabody Medal for Outstanding
Contributions to Music in America.
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