Newswise — ABC News Justice Department Correspondent Pierre Thomas will address the 2004 graduates of Virginia Tech during the University Commencement exercises Friday, May 14, at 7:30 p.m., at Lane Stadium/Worsham Field.
A Virginia Tech graduate (communication studies '84), Thomas has covered the U.S. Justice Department and law enforcement issues for ABC News since 2000, reporting on "World News Tonight with Peter Jennings" and contributing to "Good Morning America," "This Week," "Nightline," and other ABC News special events.
Howard University's Graduate School Dean Orlando L. Taylor will deliver the keynote address at Virginia Tech's Graduate Commencement exercises at 3 p.m. Friday, May 14, in Cassell Coliseum. Taylor has been dean and vice provost for research of Howard's Graduate School since 1993. He is a national leader in graduate education and has served on numerous national boards, including as chair of the Board of Directors of the Council of Graduate Schools and chair of the Jacob K. Javits Fellows Program Fellowship Board. He heads Howard's efforts, along with those of 13 other research universities, to make doctoral education more responsive to societal needs and students' interests. Howard University is the nation's largest on-campus producer of African-American Ph.D. recipients.
More than 3,500 undergraduates, degree candidates and 1,000 master's degree and Ph.D. candidates will be honored at the commencement ceremonies.
Graduate School Dean Karen DePauw has commissioned an original composition from the Department of Music for the Graduate Commencement exercises and plans to make this a regular component of future ceremonies. Kent Holliday, Virginia Tech professor of music in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, wrote this year's piece, "Quodlibet."
Founded in 1872 as a land-grant college, Virginia Tech has grown to become the largest university in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Today, Virginia Tech's eight colleges are dedicated to putting knowledge to work through teaching, research, and outreach activities and to fulfilling its vision to be among the top 30 research universities in the nation. At its 2,600-acre main campus located in Blacksburg and other campus centers in Northern Virginia, Southwest Virginia, Hampton Roads, Richmond, and Roanoke, Virginia Tech enrolls more than 28,000 full- and part-time undergraduate and graduate students from all 50 states and more than 100 countries in 170 academic degree programs.
Additional information about Pierre Thomas
Thomas has covered a variety of major news stores including the Robert Hanssen FBI spy scandal, the Oklahoma City Bombing missing FBI files controversy, and the Chandra Levy case. Thomas was a significant contributor to ABC News' team coverage of the September 11 attacks and their aftermath, coverage that won the network's news division a coveted Peabody Award and a DuPont Award.
A native of Amherst County, Va., Thomas began his journalism career with the Roanoke Times and joined the Washington Post in 1987. During his 10-year career at the Post, Thomas first covered local Virginia politics, police and courts for the Metro section. He then went to work on the Metro investigative staff and the National staff where he covered the Justice Department and law enforcement issues.
From 1997 to 2000, Thomas was CNN's Justice Department correspondent, reporting breaking news on terrorism, cyber-crime, the hunt for Osama bin Laden, the capture of the railway killer, and the Justice Department's involvement in the Elian Gonzales case.
A member of the National Association of Black Journalists, Thomas has won numerous awards and recognition during his journalism career. In 1991, he was part of a team whose work was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for reporting on illegal gun use in the Washington, D.C. area. In 1991, and again in 1992, Thomas won the Mort Mintz Investigative Award, and was a finalist in 1993 for the Livingston Young Journalist Award. In 1994, he received the Pass Award from the National Council on Crime and Delinquency for his article, "Beyond Grief and Fear."
Additional Virginia Tech commencement speaker
Virginia Tech's colleges and centers also occasionally have ceremonies and speakers.
Harold G. Koenig, M.D., M.H.Sc., will be the keynote speaker at Virginia Tech's Center for Gerontology's Graduate Certificate and Awards Celebration. The ceremony, which honors students with a Graduate Certificate in Gerontology and recognizes student and faculty award winners, will be held at 7 p.m. Thursday, May 6, in the Fralin Biotechnology Center Auditorium on Virginia Tech's campus.
Dr. Koenig is an advocate of increasing the presence of religion and spirituality in the daily practice of medicine and has testified before the U.S. Senate about the benefits of spirituality on health. The title of his presentation is Religion, Spirituality and Health: History, Research, and Application. He is founder and director of the Center for the Study of Religion/Spirituality and Health at Duke University.
Established in 1977-78, the Center for Gerontology serves as the organizational unit and focal point for aging-related activities at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. The Center's primary mission is to foster and facilitate multidisciplinary research that enhances the quality of life of older adults. In support of this mission, the Center focuses primarily on three streams of coordinated research: Family Gerontology, Health and Aging, and Elder Rights. In support of the University's outreach mission, the Center serves as a research-based educational resource for academic departments across the university and for community agencies and organizations that concern themselves with research or services to the older population.
Images from last year's commencement are posted at http://www.unirel.vt.edu/vtsnaps/commence/. Call 540-231- 6992 email [email protected] to arrange for high resolution photos.
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