The Johns Hopkins Gazette: May 21, 2001
May 21, 2001
VOL. 30, NO. 35

  

Ceremonies Put Cap on 125th Year

By Greg Rienzi
The Gazette
Johns Hopkins Gazette Online Edition

The university's 125th academic year is drawing to a close, and once again it is time to honor those ending their scholarly journey. It has been said that for every ending there is a beginning, and while that well-worn adage still applies to all Johns Hopkins graduates, this year it applies to some graduation ceremonies as well.

Beginning a new tradition, the 2001 university-wide commencement and Homewood undergraduate diploma ceremonies will be held on Garland Field, located at the southern end of the Homewood campus. The ceremonies had previously taken place on Homewood's Upper Quad, an area recently landscaped with new brick paths, lighting fixtures and greenery.

The university-wide ceremony, to be held at 9:15 a.m. on Thursday, May 24, will feature the conferring of more than 5,000 degrees; recognize the new members of the Society of Scholars, who will be inducted on May 23; and bestow honorary degrees upon Karen Davis, Alfred E. Mann, Maclyn McCarty and Arnall Patz, all of whom have long-standing ties to Hopkins (see story). In keeping with tradition, President William R. Brody will deliver the address.

In addition, each of the university's eight academic divisions will hold a diploma award ceremony featuring a keynote speaker selected by representatives of the school. Among the speakers will be the Dalai Lama, violinist Isaac Stern, Surgeon General David Satcher and Nobel laureate Joshua Lederberg. Ceremonies also will include the announcement of awards that recognize the contributions and achievements of students and faculty.

Al Hunt, executive Washington editor of The Wall Street Journal, will address seniors graduating from the Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences and the G.W.C. Whiting School of Engineering at their diploma ceremony at 1:45 p.m. on Thursday, May 24.

Al Hunt, undergraduate Arts and Sciences and Engineering

Hunt has held his current position with The Wall Street Journal since 1993, writing the weekly editorial page column "Politics and People" and directing the paper's political polls. He has been a panelist for 11 years on CNN's The Capital Gang and since 1998 on CNN's Evans, Novak, Hunt and Shields. His brother is a Johns Hopkins graduate and his nephew, Noah Hunt, is a member of the senior class.

The Krieger School's master's diploma award ceremony will feature Edward T. Dangel III, a 1964 Hopkins graduate and managing partner of Dangel, Donlan & Fine, a Boston law firm. The ceremony will take place at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, May 24, in Homewood's Shriver Hall.

Joseph R. Reynolds Jr., a 1969 graduate and president of Forensic Technologies International in Annapolis, Md., will speak to the gathered graduates at the Whiting School's master's diploma ceremony, to be held at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, May 24, on Garland Field.

The Whiting School's Ph.D. hooding ceremony will be held at 3:30 p.m, Wednesday, May 23, in Shriver Hall. The speaker is the school's own Charles R. Westgate, the William B. Kouwenhoven Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Westgate, who joined the electrical engineering faculty in 1966, has supervised more than 30 doctoral students and received several undergraduate teaching awards, including the George E. Owen teaching award in 1993 and the Student Council Excellence in Teaching Award in 2000. He was recently awarded the Johns Hopkins University Heritage Award by the university's Alumni Association.

Charles Westgate, Engineering's Ph.D. ceremony

Mame Warren 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 Wednesday, May 23, on Garland Field. A historian and author, Warren is the editor of John Hopkins: Knowledge for the World, the university's 125th anniversary commemoration book. The diploma ceremony speaker for the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies will be the Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso, Buddhist monk and spiritual leader of the Tibetan people. The ceremony will be at 3 p.m. on Thursday, May 24, at Constitution Hall, Washington, D.C.

The Dalai Lama, SAIS

Winner of the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize, the 14th Dalai Lama assumed full political power in Tibet in November 1950 at the age of 15 after the People's Liberation Army of China invaded that region. Since 1960, he has resided in Dharamsala, India--the seat of the Tibetan government in exile--following the Tibetan National Uprising's defeat by the Chinese army. Today, more than 130,000 Tibetans live in Dharamsala in exile. The Dalai Lama has received numerous peace awards and honorary degrees from Western universities and institutions. He also received the Raoul Wallenberg Congressional Human Rights Award in 1989.

The School of Medicine will welcome Surgeon General David Satcher at its graduation ceremony, to be held at 2:30 p.m. on Thursday, May 24, in the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, 1212 Cathedral St., Baltimore.

David Satcher, Medicine

Satcher is the 16th surgeon general of the United States and the first African-American to hold the post. Satcher served simultaneously in the positions of surgeon general and assistant secretary for health from February 1998 through January 2001. He previously was director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and administrator of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. Before joining the government, Satcher was president of Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tenn.

The Bloomberg School of Public Health's diploma award ceremony will feature speaker Joshua Lederberg, Nobel laureate and former president of Rockefeller University. The ceremony will be at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, May 23, at the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall.

Lederberg is presently the Sackler Foundation Scholar and professor emeritus of molecular genetics and informatics at Rockefeller University. His lifelong research in molecular biology, for which he received the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in 1958, has been in the genetic structure and function of microorganisms. Lederberg received the U.S. National Medal of Science in 1989 and has been a member of the National Academy of Science since 1957. He also is a charter member of the Institute of Medicine.

This year's speaker for the School of Nursing graduation ceremony, to be held at 5 p.m. on Thursday, May 24, in Goucher College's Kraushaar Auditorium, is Maryann F. Fralic, professor and director of corporate and foundation relations at the School of Nursing. Formerly vice president for nursing at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Fralic serves as executive adviser for the Nursing Executive Center of the Advisory Board Company in Washington, D.C., and as senior consultant for the Robert Wood Johnson Nurse Executive Fellows Program.

Maryann Fralic, Nursing

Violinist Isaac Stern will address the Peabody Conservatory graduates. The ceremony will be held at 8 p.m. on Thursday, May 24, in the school's Miriam A. Friedberg Concert Hall.

Recognized as one of the foremost violinists of modern times, Stern has appeared on the world's most prestigious concert stages and guided the careers of numerous young musicians. He is one of the most recorded musical artists of our time, with more than 100 recordings of more than 200 works to his credit. He is recently the author, with Chaim Potok, of a memoir titled My First 79 Years, published by Alfred A. Knopf.

Isaac Stern, Peabody

Those attending the Homewood ceremonies are asked to enter the campus at the Wyman Park Drive entrance.

About the graduating class

The total number of earned degrees, certificates and diplomas awarded is expected to be 5,251, as follows:

1,176 bachelor's degrees (including 940 seniors graduating from the schools of Arts and Sciences and Engineering)

3,498 master's degrees

499 doctoral degrees (116 of which are medical degrees)

78 certificates and diplomas
 


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