Joan Lunden, award-winning TV journalist, author, and former co-host of Good Morning America, will be principal speaker

Lafayette will grant 640 degrees to 616 graduating seniors at the College’s 175th Commencement Saturday, May 22.

The event will feature an address by award-winning TV journalist Joan Lunden and will include the awarding of four honorary degrees. Father Thomas J. Hagan, O.S.F.S., former Catholic chaplain at Lafayette and the founder of the humanitarian organization Hands Together, will also present a speech about his work in Haiti. The processional will begin at 2:15 p.m. with the program starting at 2:30 p.m. Also scheduled for Saturday is a Baccalaureate service at 10:30 a.m. with a sermon by Varun Soni, dean of religious life at University of Southern California.

The Commencement web site has information for parents. Both the Baccalaureate and Commencement ceremonies will be held on the Quad. In case of rain, they will be held in Allan P. Kirby Sports Center. If there is a change in the location for the ceremonies based on weather, the information will be available by calling (610) 330-5809.

President Daniel H. Weiss will award Lunden the honorary degree of Doctor of Journalism and Hagan the honorary degree of Doctor of Public Service. Also receiving honorary degrees will be Edward W. Ahart ’69, incoming chair of the Board of Trustees and managing partner and chairman of the law firm of Schenck, Price, Smith & King, Florham Park, N.J. (Doctor of Laws), and Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, the Marquis de Lafayette (1757-1834), the champion of freedom and leader in the American and French revolutions for whom Lafayette College is named (Doctor of Public Service, posthumously).

Read about the honorands.

Michael Adelman ’10 will deliver farewell remarks for the class of 2010. He is the recipient of the George Wharton Pepper Prize, awarded to the senior who “most closely represents the Lafayette  ideal.” Adelman, of Clarks Summit, Pa., will graduate with a B.S. in civil engineering.

Read about Michael Adelman.

The first students to receive their diplomas will be Adelman, Michael Hadley ’10, and Sarah Kolba ’10, who have achieved the highest cumulative grade-point average in the class. Hadley, of Somerville, N.J., will receive an A.B. with a self-designed major in cognitive science. Kolba, of Chelmsford, Mass., will receive an A.B. with a self-designed major in Medieval and Renaissance studies.

Teevrat Garg ’10, Kelly Hilovsky ’10 and Ian Stone ’10, co-chairs of the Class of 2010 Gift Committee, will present the class gift. Garg, of Haryana, India, will receive a B.S. in mathematics and an A.B. with a major in economics and business. Hilovsky, of Douglassville, Pa., will receive a B.S. in neuroscience. Stone, of Lebanon, N.H., will receive an A.B. with a major in psychology.

Weiss will congratulate the recipients of annual Lafayette awards for distinguished teaching, scholarship, and service to the College and recognize Dan Bauer, professor of anthropology and sociology and director of Technology Clinic, who is retiring and has been elected to emeritus status.

Read about Bauer.

Alan R. Griffith ’64, outgoing chair of the Board of Trustees, will recognize trustee Nancy Brennan Lund ’74, who is retiring. Weiss will also recognize Griffith, who is stepping down as chair but will remain a member of the Board.

Weiss will confer degrees upon the graduates and will deliver farewell remarks. Assisting in presenting diplomas will be Susan Niles, professor of anthropology and clerk of the faculty, and Hannah W. Stewart-Gambino, dean of the College.

Guy L. Hovis, John H. Markle Professor of Geology, the faculty member who is senior in the rank of full professor, will lead the academic procession as Bearer of the Mace. James F. Krivoski, vice president for student affairs, will marshal the class of 2010.

Wendy L. Hill, provost and dean of the faculty, will march at the head of the faculty. Trustee Emeritus Mark B. Weisburger ’55 will lead the trustees and the platform party.

John Colatch, College chaplain and director of religious life, will deliver the invocation and give the benediction. Emily Wilkins, visiting director of choral activities, will lead the singing of “America the Beautiful.” Members of the Lafayette Choir, led by Wilkins, will lead the singing of “The Alma Mater.”

2 Comments

  1. John Rehm says:

    Congrats to the Graduates. Get out there and change the World for Good!

    Perhaps, a relief of a petrographic microscope could be built into the handle of the Mace for the august geology prof to carry.

    On, Lafayette! Beat Lehigh!

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