UIndy prepares for graduation
By Sami Shelton & Andy Burba
News Editor & Staff Writer
The University of Indianapolis will host its undergraduate commencement ceremony Saturday, May 3, at 2 p.m. and its graduate program commencement Friday, May 2, at 7:30 p.m. Both ceremonies will be held in Nicoson Hall.
Philanthropist Christel DeHaan is the featured speaker during this year’s undergraduate commencement. DeHann will be stepping down this year from her position as chair of the UIndy board of trustees.
UIndy President Beverley Pitts said the decision to choose DeHaan was a courtesy and a recognition.
“We wanted to ask her to be our commencement speaker, and I know she’ll be wonderful,” Pitts said.
During the undergraduate ceremony, UIndy will be awarding an honorary doctorate to Reverend Boniface Hardin. Hardin is the retired founder and president of Martin University in Indianapolis.
Arthur Levine, president of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, will be the featured speaker during the graduate commencement. UIndy was one of four Indiana universities selected to pioneer the foundation’s goal to improve teacher education in the United States.
According to Registrar Mary Beth Bagg, the number of graduates in 2007 was 1,102. These graduates also represented 18 U.S. states and 22 nations from around the world. The projected number of graduates for 2008 is a record number of 1,352 students.
The University of Indianapolis will also host an athletic graduation on Monday, May 5, in Schwitzer Student Center 010.
UIndy Athletic Director Sue Willey said that the athletic graduation isn’t as grand as the normal student graduation, but is important nonetheless.
Without the athletic graduation, the student athletes, who range from competitors in softball and golf, to tennis and track and field, would have to retrieve their diplomas from the registrar. This year approximately 20 students are not able to attend graduation on the regularly scheduled date because of a sporting event.
“The athletic graduation is a special ceremony in which the athletes get to receive their diploma and spend one-on-one time with President Beverley Pitts,” Willey said. “The ceremony also lasts about only twenty minutes.”
