April 20, 1999
Contact: Laurent Pernot (312) 413-4137 [email protected]
ADVISORY TO NEWS PLANNERS AND ASSIGNMENT AND PHOTO EDITORS
UIC GRADUATION FEATURES BILL DALEY, PROUD MOMS (AND DADS)
May 9 event last to coincide with Mother's Day until at least 2002
WHAT: UIC commencement for 1,400 graduates and their families
WHO: U.S. Commerce Secretary William Daley delivers the address; Opera diva Jessye Norman and Vivette Ravel Rifkin, founder of the Chicago-based Educational Tape Recording for the Blind, receive honorary degrees.
WHEN: May 9, 10 a.m.-noon
WHERE: UIC Pavilion (Racine and Harrison)
DETAILS: Besides being held on Mother's Day, UIC's graduation has a special flavor because:
* 42 percent of UIC students are first-generation college students (compared to just 26 percent nationally).
* On average, UIC students are more likely to have to juggle school and work responsibilities (23 percent of them hail from families with yearly incomes of less than $25,000, compared to 11 percent nationally).
* One in five UIC students is an immigrant (compared to 4 percent for the average U.S. university).
* UIC's student body is the most diverse in the Midwest.
Daley's father, Richard J. Daley, was instrumental in the creation of UIC (the campus library now bears his name and is home to his papers). Bill Daley is scheduled to speak at about 11 a.m.
Janet Deatrick, director of the children's nursing division at the University of Pennsylvania, will receive an Alumni Achievement Award.
Sidney Port, a director at the Art Institute, the Lyric Opera and other cultural institutions, will receive a UIC Distinguished Service Award.
Yazmin Sanchez, former student representative on the U of I Board of Trustees, will be the student speaker.
-UIC-
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