West Virginia University men’s basketball Coach Bob Huggins, Olympic gymnast Dominique Dawes, co-host of National Public Radio’s “On the Media” Brooke Gladstone and Assistant Director of the Institute of Bioenergy, Climate and Environment Franklin E. Boteler are among WVU’s 2011 Commencement speakers.
The University will host a series of individual, personalized ceremonies for each school and college at a variety of venues on the Evansdale Campus and around Morgantown, including the WVU Coliseum, Creative Arts Center and Morgantown Event Center.
Students and their families are encouraged to visit the Commencement website http://commencement.wvu.edu/ for event updates, as well as information about photography, lodging and traditions.
All ceremonies will be webcast online at http://webcast.wvu.edu .
Information on the individual Commencement ceremonies and their speakers, if one was selected, follow.
Friday, May 13
• Honors Convocation, 5:30 p.m., Creative Arts Center; West Virginia Senator John Unger will speak.
Unger is currently serving as a West Virginia state senator representing Berkeley and Jefferson counties. He was first elected to the state Senate in 1998, at the age of 28 – making him one of the youngest elected state-senators in West Virginia history. He is serving his fourth four-year term and is Majority Leader of the Senate. He was WVU’s 24th Rhodes Scholar, and obtained his bachelor’s degree in liberal arts and biology at WVU. He received a bachelor’s and master’s degree in philosophy, politics and economics from Oxford University in England.
Saturday, May 14
• School of Medicine (MD, Ph.D.), 8:30 a.m., Creative Arts Center; Dean Dr. Arthur Ross will speak.
Ross took over as dean for the WVU School of Medicine in August of 2010. Prior to his appointment, he served as dean of Chicago Medical School and vice president for medical affairs of Rosalind Franklin University. He is a graduate of Trinity College the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.
• School of Dentistry, 9:30 a.m., Morgantown Event Center; WVU alumnus Dr. Dallas Nibert will speak.
Nibert, of Huntington, graduated from WVU’s School of Dentistry in 2007. Since graduation, he has worked as an associate dentist with Dr. William Crews Family Dentistry in Huntington. Nibert is currently on the executive council and is serving as treasurer of the West Virginia Dental Association. He is also president of the Board of Governors of the WVU School of Dentistry Alumni Association.
• College of Human Resources and Education, 9:30 a.m., Coliseum; West Virginia State Superintendent of Schools Jorea M. Marple will speak.
Marple began serving as West Virginia’s 27th state superintendent of schools in March 2011. As superintendent, she oversees the state’s public school system of 55 districts and an estimated 282,000 students. She received her doctorate in education administration from WVU, and has more than 35 years of experience as a classroom teacher.
• School of Nursing, 12:30 p.m., Morgantown Event Center; School of Nursing Professor and Clinical Investigator at WVU Hospitals June H. Larrabee will speak.
Larrabee has dedicated her career to improving the quality of health care. She has over 45 peer-reviewed publications, and is internationally known for her scholarly work. She is a recipient of the Phoebe Kandel Rohrer Alumnus Award from the Medical College of Georgia’s School of Nursing, where she received her bachelor’s degree. She earned her master’s degree from Boston University and her doctorate from the University of Tennessee, Memphis.
• College of Law, 1 p.m., Creative Arts Center; WVU College of Law Professor of the Year and WVU alumnus Greg Bowman will speak.
Bowman currently serves as visiting associate professor at the WVU College of Law. He is the founding director of the International Law Center, Korean Summer Legal Studies Program and International Speakers Series at his home institution of Mississippi College’s School of Law. He wrote a book, called “Trade Remedies in North America,” and teaches law courses on contracts, remedies and national security law. He received his law degree from Northwestern University School of Law, master’s from the University of Exeter in England and bachelor’s from WVU.
• College of Engineering and Mineral Resources, 2 p.m., Coliseum; WVU alumni George B. Bennett and Henry T. Yang will speak.
Bennett, a serial entrepreneur, co-founded top-tier international consulting firm Bain and Co. and boutique-strategy consulting firm Braxton Associates. Both companies are highly regarded international strategy consulting firms that have impacted Fortune 500 scale firms around the world. He also co-founded Symmetrix, a management consulting firm, and Health Dialog Services Corp. He was inducted into WVU’s Distinguished Alumni Academy of Industrial and Management Systems Engineering in 1982. He graduated from WVU with a bachelor’s degree in 1967, and from Carnegie Mellon University with a master’s degree in 1971.
Yang has served as the chancellor of the University of California, Santa Barbara since 1994. He was formerly the Neil A. Armstrong Distinguished Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Purdue University, where he also served as the dean of engineering for 10 years. He received his bachelor’s degree from National Taiwan University, his master’s degree in structural engineering from West Virginia University, and his doctorate from Cornell University.
• School of Pharmacy, 4 p.m., Morgantown Event Center; Executive Vice President and Chief Executive Officer of the American Pharmacists Association Thomas E. Menighan will speak.
Menighan, a native of West Virginia, graduated from WVU’s School of Pharmacy with a bachelor’s in 1974 and earned a Masters in Business Administration in 1990 from Averett College. He formally served as president and member of the American Pharmacists Association, and prior to that was president of SynTegra Solutions, Inc. in Germantown, Md. Menighan is also the founder of SymRx, Inc. and CornerDrugstore.com.
• College of Creative Arts, 5 p.m., Creative Arts Center; Dean Bernie Schultz will speak.
In addition to being dean, Schultz is director of the Creative Arts Center and a professor of art history at WVU. He is the author of “Art Anatomy in Renaissance Italy” and co-author of “Art Past/Art Present.” He has been recognized as a distinguished teacher; and received the Neil S. Bucklew Award for Social Justice at WVU and Governor’s Award for Leadership in the Arts for the State of West Virginia. He was named to the Commission on Arts in West Virginia in 2009.
• College of Business and Economics, 6 p.m., Coliseum; Chairman of 1607 Capital Partners and WVU alumnus Fred Tattersall.
Tattersall is currently chairman of 1607 Capital Partners, a Richmond-based investment management company established in 2007. He graduated with honors in 1970 from WVU’s College of Business and Economics. He later served as senior vice president in the Fixed Income Division of what now is Bank of America. In 1997, he created the Tattersall Advisory Group, which currently manages more than $52 billion for institutional accounts. He retired from the business in June 2004.
Sunday, May 15
• Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Design, 9:30 a.m., Coliseum; Assistant Director of the Institute of Bioenergy, Climate and Environment with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Franklin E. Boteler will speak.
In his current position, Boteler works on programs that advance science through awarding approximately $300 million a year in grants to support research, education and extension in sustainable bioenergy, adaptation/mitigation of agriculture and natural resources to climate change and variability, sustainable natural resources and environmental concerns. He has previously served as a tenured associate professor in WVU’s Division of Forestry. He holds a doctorate and master’s degree from Pennsylvania State University and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland.
• Eberly College of Arts and Sciences hooding ceremony for masters and doctoral candidates, 10 a.m., Creative Arts Center; University of Cincinnati Assistant Professor and Masters of Public Health Program Director Dr. William Mase.
Mase joined the University of Cincinnati faculty in 2008, serving as an assistant professor and director of the Masters of Public Health Program in the College of Medicine. Prior to joining UC faculty, he served on the faculty of Wright State University School of Medicine for 16 years. Mase earned his doctorate in public health from the University of Kentucky College of Public Health, his master’s in public health from The Ohio State University, master’s in sociology from WVU and duel bachelor’s degrees from Wright State University.
• School of Medicine (professional programs: exercise physiology, medical technology, community medicine, physical therapy, occupational therapy), 10 a.m., Morgantown Event Center; Three-time Olympian and gold medalist Dominique Dawes will speak.
Dawes first entered the international spotlight in 1992 as part of the bronze-medal winning women’s Olympic gymnastics team. She was the first African-American gymnast to ever qualify and compete in the Olympics. She has since won more national championship medals that any other athlete, and is now the most decorated gymnast on the U.S. women’s Olympic team. She currently serves as co-chair of the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition.
• Eberly College of Arts and Sciences, 2 p.m., Coliseum; Dean Robert Jones will speak.
Jones began his reign as dean of WVU’s largest college in August of 2010. Prior to his appointment as dean, he led the biological sciences department at Virginia Tech where he oversaw more than 100 faculty and staff members, 90 graduate students and 1,600 undergraduate students. He has a master’s degree from Clemson University and a doctorate from the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry.
• Perley Isaac Reed School of Journalism, 2:30 p.m., Morgantown Event Center; Co-Host and Managing Editor of National Public Radio’s “On the Media” Brooke Gladstone will speak.
Gladstone began at National Public Radio in 1987, prior to that she was in print journalism. She has covered stories on defense policy, strip mining, broadcasting and cable TV. Her freelance pieces, covering everything from Russian faith healers to the aesthetics of Pampers, have appeared in the “London Observer,” “Boston Globe,” “Washington Post” and the “American Journalism Review,” among others.
• College of Physical Activity and Sports Sciences, 2:30 p.m., Creative Arts Center; WVU men’s basketball Coach Bob Huggins will speak.
A native of Morgantown, Huggins is a two-time Academic All-American and WVU alumnus. He began his reign as WVU men’s basketball coach in April of 2007. In his first season at WVU, he took the Mountaineers to the NCAA Sweet 16 and led the team to 26 victories – winning more games in his first year than any other coach in WVU history. In 2010, Huggins guided WVU to the NCAA Final Four for the first time since 1959.
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