UW News

June 9, 1998

123rd COMMENCEMENT

The University of Washington’s Class of 1998 totals 9,952, a preliminary count of undergraduate, graduate and professional students receiving degrees at three Commencement ceremonies – with the largest one Saturday, June 13, at Husky Stadium in Seattle “come rain or come shine.”

Dr. Richard L. McCormick, the University’s 28th president, will officiate
at Commencement ceremonies in Seattle and also for the UW Tacoma Friday, June 12,
and for the UW Bothell Sunday, June 14.

About 9,116 degrees – baccalaureate, graduate and professional – will be awarded June 13 by the University at its 123rd Commencement ceremonies in Husky Stadium.

The site change of the graduation exercise from the 7,900-seat Edmundson Pavilion to the 72,500 Husky Stadium on the Seattle campus is believed to be the first outdoor ceremony in UW history and was made to accommodate the ever-growing
number of graduates and guests. There will only be one ceremony, starting at 2 p.m.

The UW Bothell’s commencement will highlight 396 receiving bachelor’s and master’s degrees Sunday, June 14, in Edmundson Pavilion on the main Seattle campus.

Four hundred forty-four will receive bachelor’s and master’s degrees Friday, June 12, from the UW Tacoma during ceremonies in the University of Puget Sound Fieldhouse in Tacoma.

The combined UW Tacoma and UW Bothell total sets a record 840 degree recipients.

All of these totals are preliminary graduation figures.

UNLIKE THE two previous “Purple” and “Gold” ceremonies in Seattle, graduates will begin to line up at 12:30 p.m. as the stadium gates open. The procession begins at 1:30 and the ceremony begins at 2 o’clock.

In case of inclement weather, the two-and-a-half-hour ceremony will be shortened.

Baccalaureate, graduate and professional degrees will be conferred to about 4,500 expected to participate in academic regalia before an audience of about 30,000 family members and friends as guests of the graduates.

The commencement ceremony will be broadcast live by UW’s cable programming service on UWTV/27 in Seattle, UWTV/18 in Wenatchee and UWTV/16 in Spokane. Taped broadcasts of the commencement will air the following days.

Jim Lehrer, executive editor and anchor of The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer on the Public Broadcasting System (PBS), will be the principal commencement speaker.

Lehrer, author of 12 books and a playwright, received several Emmys, the George Foster Peabody Award, the William Allen White Foundation Award for Journalistic Merit and the University of Missouri School of Journalism’s Medal of Honor. In 1991, he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

He started his reporting career with the Dallas Morning News and as city editor of the Dallas Times Herald. He began working in public television in 1978 and the following year became public affairs coordinator for PBS in Washington, D.C.

As correspondent for the National Public Affairs Center for Television, he began his association with Robert MacNeil. The Robert MacNeil Report premiered in 1975
with Lehrer as Washington correspondent, The program was renamed in 1976 as the MacNeil/Lehrer Report and won more than 30 awards for journalistic excellence. In 1983 The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour was launched. MacNeil retired in 1995 and the program became The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.

Lehrer moderated six nationally televised debates among presidential candidates in the last three elections. In 1996 he moderated all three debates between Clinton and Dole and vice presidential candidates Gore and Kemp.

University President McCormick will preside and present the names of the degree recipients to an anticipated combined assemblage of some 35,000 – among them parents, relatives, friends and the graduates themselves.

These degrees – from baccalaureate to doctoral level – have been earned by students who completed their academic requirements sometime during the 1997-98 academic year extending from summer and autumn quarters in 1997 to winter and spring quarters in 1998.

THE SEATTLE preliminary graduation figures total 9,116 – about 85 less than last year’s total of degree recipients.

Bachelor’s degrees will be awarded to 6,235 with 3,392 graduating seniors being June graduates.

Among the graduating seniors, 30 will be graduated summa cum laude (“with highest honors”). Graduating magna cum laude will be 157. Cum laude honors will go to 355.

Altogether, honor seniors number 542 or about nine percent of their graduating Class of ’98.

Master’s degrees will be given to 1,980.

Doctor of philosophy, arts, musical arts and education degrees will go to 510.
Professional degrees number 391 with 175 in law, 154 in medicine, 47 in dental
surgery and 15 in pharmacy.

Preliminary graduation figures show that the College of Arts and Sciences
accounted for more than half of the bachelor’s degrees to be given for the 1997-98 summer, autumn, winter and spring quarters. Arts and Sciences numbers 4,314 – among them about 2,310 June graduates.

Other colleges and schools and their preliminary total of baccalaureate degrees:

Business Administration, 734; Engineering, 632; Architecture and Urban Planning, 145; Medicine with bachelor’s degrees in medical technology, physical therapy, prosthetics, and orthotics and occupational therapy, 114; Forest Resources, 86; Nursing, 65; Pharmacy, 63; Ocean and Fishery Sciences, 59; Social Work, 49; Public Health and Community Medicine, 28; and Dentistry with a bachelor’s in dental hygiene, six.

Members of the Board of Regents, deans and other representatives of the University’s colleges and schools will participate in the Seattle ceremony. University officials also will be present at the Tacoma and Bothell ceremonies.

THE ALUMNA Summa Laude Dignata Award, the highest honor bestowed by
the University to an alumnus or alumna, will be presented at the Seattle ceremonies to Dr. Shirley Mahaley Malcolm who heads the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Directorate in Washington, D.C., and is widely known for bringing science education to communities nationwide.
A recipient of a bachelor’s degree in zoology from the UW in 1967, Malcolm as a
high school and college teacher has been a pioneer by taking “her lesson plan to the highest levels, teaching a nation that women and ethnic minorities” were often left out of the science talent pool “when it came to science education and then going about fixing things.”
Malcolm in her science classes was usually the only African-American, many times the only woman, and always the only African American woman. After UW, she went on to receive a master’s degree in animal behavior from the University of California at Los Angeles and a doctorate in ecology from Pennslvania State University. She taught
at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington before joining AAAS.

Other recipients of special honors will be acknowledged at the Seattle commencement. These also include the Outstanding Public Service Award, Distinguished Teaching Awards, Excellence in Teaching Awards and the President’s Medal, the latter to the graduating senior with the most distinguished academic record.

Dr. McCormick will preside at the other campus commencements:

FOR UW TACOMA at 7 p.m. Friday, June 12, in the UPS Fieldhouse in
Tacoma …

The UW Tacoma’s eighth Commencement expects 400 graduating seniors,
including 203 in liberal studies, 122 from the bachelor’s program in business administration and 75 from the bachelor’s program in nursing.
Eighteen graduate students will be the first at UW Tacoma to receive a master’s degree in nursing. Thirty-five other graduate students will receive master of education degrees.

Commencement speaker is Kelso Gillenwater, retired publisher of The News Tribune in Tacoma.

Dr. Vicky Carwein, dean and vice provost of the UW Tacoma, will present the degree recipients.

The ceremony also will spotl