Spring Commencement Speakers Announced

U.S. Ambassador to South Africa Eric M. Bost and Texas Medical Center President Richard E. Wainerdi will be the visiting commencement speakers for an unprecedented five graduation ceremonies at Texas A&M University May 9-10. They will be joined as commencement speakers by Texas A&M Interim Executive Vice President and Provost Jerry R. Strawser, 2007-07 Faculty Senate Speaker Angie Hill Price and Distinguished Professor of Political Science George C. Edwards III.

Each will speak to more than 1,000 of the estimated 5,500 degree candidates—which would be a record—scheduled to receive undergraduate or graduate degrees during the two-day ceremonies at Reed Arena.

A separate graduation exercise will be conducted May 8 for an expected 128 students receiving Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degrees at Rudder Auditorium, with Texas A&M University System Chancellor Michael D. McKinney scheduled to address them.

The precise number of undergraduate and graduate degree candidates will not be known until a few days before the commencement ceremonies are conducted, but the total will almost certainly exceed the current record of 5,417 students who received degrees in the spring of 2007, notes Registrar Don Carter, who has overseen Texas A&M’s graduation exercises since 1987.

“The number of ceremonies required to award degrees in the formal manner in which we think Texas A&M degrees should be conferred has prompted us to increase the number of ceremonies over the years,” Carter says. “We’ve conducted four May ceremonies since 2001, but the increasingly large number of graduates now dictates that we go to five for spring. From an institutional perspective—and for the future of the state and nation—having to increase the number of graduation ceremonies is a nice problem to have.”

Edwards, a nationally recognized authority on American politics and public policy and who serves as editor of the “Presidential Studies Quarterly” in his capacity as a leading scholar on the presidency, will speak at 9 a.m. Friday, May 9, addressing graduates in geosciences, liberal arts and recipients of degrees through the Council of Deans.

Bost, who has been the top U.S. diplomatic representative to the Republic of South Africa since 2006 and also oversees President Bush’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, will address graduates in agriculture and life sciences and architecture at 2 p.m. Friday.

Dr. Wainerdi, who has served as president and chief operating officer for the world-renowned medical center in Houston since 1984 and who earlier in his career served in several key academic and administrative positions at Texas A&M, will deliver the commencement address to graduates in engineering and those from the George Bush School of Government and Public Service at 7 p.m. Friday.

Dr. Strawser, who has served as Texas A&M’s chief academic officer on an interim basis for the past year and joined the university as dean of the Mays Business School in 2001, will be the 9 a.m. speaker on Saturday, addressing graduates in business and veterinary medicine and biomedical sciences (those other than recipients of D.V.M. degrees).

Dr. Price, associate professor of engineering technology and industrial distribution who just completed a term as leader of the Texas A&M Faculty Senate, will address graduates in education and human development and science at 2 p.m. Saturday.

The Saturday afternoon ceremonies also will include commissioning for approximately 83 members of the Corps of Cadets who will be entering the Army, Air Force, Navy or Marine Corps. Commissioning will be followed by the Corps of Cadets’ traditional year-end ceremony known as “Final Review.” For “Final Review,” graduating seniors lead their units in a march for the final time and seniors-to-be subsequently take command of the units for a march-by for which the graduating seniors are the reviewing officers.