567 Undergraduates, 39 Graduate Students to receive Degrees
HARTFORD, Conn. – Six hundred and six bachelor’s and master’s degree candidates will receive their degrees Sunday, May 17, during Trinity’s 183rd commencement exercise to be held on the main quadrangle. The ceremony will take place from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., with a reception to follow on Campus Field.
The ceremony will cap two days of activities in which families and their graduating sons and daughters will be feted. Among the highlights will be a Saturday evening reception at the home of President James F. Jones, Jr.; a Saturday afternoon baccalaureate service for graduating seniors and their families in the Trinity Chapel; and Sunday’s commencement address, which will be delivered by award-winning author Joanna Jeanne Scott, a member of Trinity’s Class of 1982.
Scott, as well as Marjorie Van Eenam Butcher and Deborah Bial, will be given honorary degrees. These three extraordinary women were not selected by coincidence; commencement marks the launching of the 40th anniversary celebration of the admission of women to Trinity.
In addition to the awarding of degrees to 567 undergraduate and 39 graduate students, Trinity will name the valedictorian and salutatorian of the Class of 2009; the recipients of the Trustee Awards for Faculty and Student Excellence; and the winners of the Charles A. Dana Research Professorship, which honors faculty members who have compiled exceptional scholarly records.
One of the main events on Saturday will be the Phi Beta Kappa Initiation luncheon from noon to 2 p.m. in the Washington Room in Mather Hall. Members are elected from among those students who have achieved the highest grades. The Trinity chapter, known as the Beta of Connecticut, was chartered by the Yale chapter, the Alpha of Connecticut, in 1845, and is the eighth oldest chapter of Phi Beta Kappa in the United States. Each inductee may bring four guests to the luncheon, but additional guests may attend the initiation ceremony at 12:50 p.m.
That will be followed Saturday by the 4 p.m. baccalaureate service in the Chapel, which is a time of reflection and thanksgiving by seniors representing a variety of faiths. The reception for the Class of 2009 will be from 5:15 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. at the President’s House at 133 Vernon Street.
On Sunday, the bachelor’s and master’s degree candidates will gather at 10 a.m. at the lower Long Walk, and at 10:50 a.m., the academic procession will begin. It includes the tradition of stepping on The Luther-Roosevelt Long Walk Inscription in front of the Fuller Arch in Northam Towers. The inscription commemorates the visit in June 1918 of former President Theodore Roosevelt, who delivered an address and received an honorary degree at commencement.
Shortly after the procession, the commencement ceremony will begin. The featured speaker, Joanna Scott, is a professor of English at the University of Rochester, and a novelist and essayist who has won numerous literary awards. She will receive an honorary Doctor of Letters degree.
Butcher will be presented with an honorary Doctor of Science degree in recognition of her 33 years of mathematics teaching at Trinity, where she became the first female faculty member in 1956. In 1979, Butcher earned the rank of full professor, the first woman at Trinity to do so, and 10 years later she was named professor emeritus.
Deborah Bial, president and founder of The Posse Foundation, will receive a Doctor of Humane Letters degree. The Posse Foundation, which was founded 20 years ago by Bial is dedicated to helping disadvantaged deserving students obtain college educations. Since 1989, more than 2,600 Posse Scholars have won $265 million in leadership scholarships. Trinity currently enrolls 44 Posse Scholars.
Commencement will be held rain or shine on the main quadrangle. However, in the event of extreme weather conditions that threaten personal safety (such as thunder showers), the ceremony may be moved to the Koeppel Community Sports Center on New Britain Avenue. In that case, seating will be limited to four guest tickets per graduate. If the move is necessary, details will be communicated by 7 a.m. on Sunday with the posting of “Extreme Weather Plan in Effect” banners at Mather Hall, The Bistro, the Koeppel Center, and the Ferris Athletic Center.
Also, a recorded message will be left on the commencement hotline at 860-297-4133 and a notice will be posted on the College’s web site: www.trincoll.edu. For those friends and family members who do not have tickets if there is extreme weather, they may view the ceremony in the Goodwin Theater; the Austin Arts Center; McCook Auditorium; Boyer Auditorium; Albert C. Jacobs Life Sciences Center; or the Washington Room in Mather Hall.
Parking will be available in many Trinity lots and on a limited number of athletic fields, which can be accessed from Broad Street (across from the Boys & Girls Club on the corner of Broad and Brownell). The fields will be open on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. and on Sunday from 7 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. There is no parking allowed on the south side of Vernon Street or on Allen Place and Crescent Streets.
For more information about Trinity’s 183rd Commencement, please visit: www.trincoll.edu/AboutTrinity/commencement.
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