Irvine, Calif., June 9, 1998--UC Irvine will award 3,742 undergraduate and graduate degrees at its 33rd commencement Saturday, June 20. More than 30,000 people are expected to attend the six ceremonies scheduled throughout the day in Aldrich Park and Bren Events Center. Doctoral and master's degrees will be awarded to 691 graduates, and bachelor's degrees will be awarded to 3,051 undergraduates. Academic honors will be awarded to 373 graduates--32 summa cum laude, 96 magna cum laude and 245 cum laude. Chancellor Laurel L. Wilkening will present the welcoming address and confer the degrees according to the following commencement schedule:
-- School of Biological Sciences, 9 a.m., Aldrich Park--The featured speaker will be Cynthia French, who is vice president, chief scientific officer, founder and director of Reprogen, an Irvine biotechnology company that specializes in reproductive medicine. Over the past 10 years French has developed and brought to market more than 50 different products, including DNA- and immuno-based diagnostics. She received her Ph.D. in molecular biology in 1979 and her MBA in 1993 from UCI.
-- Department of Information and Computer Science and School of Physical Sciences, 11 a.m., Bren Events Center--The featured speaker will be UCI Chancellor Laurel L. Wilkening, who is retiring from the university June 30. She plans to work at a grassroots level on some specific areas that have long concerned her, including population growth, the global environment and women's issues. A planetary scientist, she has served on NASA advisory boards and as vice chair of the National Commission on Space. Wilkening was vice president for Academic Affairs at the University of Washington before becoming UCI's third chancellor in 1993. During her tenure at UCI, the university has reached the ranks of the nation's top research institutions, inaugurated the largest construction boom in its history, achieved a dramatic increase in private donations and research funding and attracted many of the nation's brightest students.
-- School of Social Sciences, 1 p.m., Aldrich Park--The featured speaker will be student Ronalee Bayani of Walnut, a UC Regents Scholar, Hewlett Scholar and Phi Beta Kappa.
-- School of the Arts, School of Humanities and Interdisciplinary Studies, 3 p.m., Bren Events Center--The featured speaker will be student Terri Macedo of Livermore, who has received several drama awards and will graduate with honors in acting.
-- School of Engineering and School of Social Ecology, 5 p.m., Aldrich Park--The featured speaker will be UCI professor of urban and regional planning Helen Ingram, an internationally recognized leader in the field of public policy. Ingram, whose research focuses on global environmental management, holds the School of Social Ecology's first endowed chair, the Drew, Chace, and Erin Warmington Chair in the Social Ecology of Peace and International Cooperation. The student speaker in social ecology will be Jane Lee of Irvine, a criminology, law and society graduate who has been accepted into the U.S. Army Reserves' counterintelligence training program. The engineering student speaker will be Jennifer Loo of Huntington Beach, magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, who has a triple major in math, chemistry and chemical engineering.
-- Graduate School of Management, 7 p.m., Bren Events Center--The featured speaker will be Roy Slavin, who is chair, president and chief executive officer of Wonderware Corp. in Irvine, which supplies software for industrial automation. Slavin has managed manufacturing companies for more than 25 years. Before joining Wonderware Corp. he was president and CEO of Siemens Industrial Automation, a hardware and software manufacturer. Commencement admission and parking will be free, with open seating. No tickets are required, but special seating and reserved parking will be available for the elderly and physically disabled, with transportation available from the reserved parking areas to the commencement sites. For more information, call Special Events Parking at (949) 824-8314 or the UCI Commencement Office at (949) 824-6378.
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