Some 3,861 undergraduate, graduate and professional students are candidates to receive degrees from the University in upcoming commencement exercises. The College of Liberal Arts holds its ceremony Friday, May 10; ceremonies for all other academic units take place Saturday, May 11.
Speakers include Beverly E. Coleman, the U.S. Department of Education's liaison to the Jacob K. Javits National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented at the University of Connecticut; Kenneth H. Hannah, vice president of financial planning and analysis for the Boeing Co.; and Chicago attorney J. Timothy Eaton, president of the Illinois State Bar Association.
Nine graduates will receive Alumni Achievement Awards, the SIU Alumni Association's top honor, as part of the individual college and school ceremonies. Two people will receive honorary degrees.
Commencement details and schedules are as follows:
Agricultural Sciences: 11 a.m. Saturday, May 11, Shryock Auditorium. James E. Pettigrew, faculty excellence professor of animal science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, will give the address and receive the Alumni Achievement Award.
Pettigrew
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A native of Wayne County, Pettigrew earned a bachelor of science degree in animal industries from SIUC in 1967, followed by a master's in animal nutrition from Iowa State University in 1969 and a doctorate in animal nutrition from the University of Illinois in 1974. He was manager of swine research for the Moorman Manufacturing Co. in Quincy for five years. In 1980, Pettigrew began a 17-year tenure at the University of Minnesota, where he taught and conducted research. His research emphases included mathematical modeling and the connections between nutrition and reproduction.
From 1997 to 2001, he ran Pettigrew Consulting International LLC. In 2001, he became a faculty excellence professor at the University of Illinois. He lives in Urbana.
Applied Sciences and Arts: 11 a.m., Saturday, May 11, SIU Arena. Laurence C. Staples, chair emeritus of the Department of Aviation Technologies, will give the address and receive the Alumni Achievement Award.
Staples
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Staples earned a bachelor's degree in industrial technology from SIUC in 1975, the year he joined the faculty full time as an aviation maintenance technology instructor. In 1978, he began a 15-year stint as coordinator of the aviation maintenance technology program. His duties included teaching, student advisement, performance of annual inspection on aircraft used for student programs, and administration of oral and practical exams to students for Federal Aviation Administration certification.
From 1989 to 1993, Staples was acting director of the Division of Aviation Technologies, and in July 1993, he became chair of the Department of Aviation Technologies. Staples served as chairman until his retirement in 2001. He lives in Makanda.
Business and Administration: 4 p.m., Saturday, May 11, SIU Arena. Kenneth H. Hannah, vice president of financial planning and analysis for the Boeing Co., will give the address and receive the Alumni Achievement Award.
Hannah
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A native of Royalton, Hannah earned a bachelor of science degree in finance from SIUC in May 1990. He was an Academic All-American and graduated cum laude. As president of the Financial Management Association, Hannah was recognized at graduation as the outstanding undergraduate student leader. He earned his master's of business administration degree from St. Louis University, specializing in international business.
He became Boeing's vice president of financial planning and analysis last August. He is responsible for providing leadership in the development of the company's integrated long-range business plan as well as ensuring Boeing's senior leadership has the financial information necessary to make critical business decisions. Prior to his position with Boeing, Hannah was chief financial officer of GE Plastics' Structured Products Division in Pittsfield, Mass. He lives in Naperville.
Coleman
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Education and Human Services: 8:30 a.m., Saturday, May 11, SIU Arena. Beverly E. Coleman, senior education research analyst with the U.S. Department of Education, will give the address; Matthew P. Stephens, professor of industrial technology and University Faculty Scholar at Purdue University, will receive the Alumni Achievement Award. Mark J. Ashley will receive an honorary doctor of rehabilitation degree.
Coleman is a 1961 graduate of SIUC, majoring in elementary and special education. She earned both her master's and doctorate at the University of Illinois-Urbana. She has more than 30 years of experience in education, including leadership positions as a classroom teacher, building principal, local school district administrator, Montessori private school board member and state of Illinois education consultant. She has held several U.S. Department of Education positions both in Chicago and in Washington, D.C. Currently she is the department's liaison to the Jacob K. Javits National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented at the University of Connecticut in collaboration with the University of Virginia and Yale University. She lives in Silver Spring, Md.
Stephens
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Stephens is a three-degree graduate of SIUC, earning a bachelor's in information systems in 1982 and another in industrial technology in 1984. His master's is from the University of Arkansas, and he earned a doctorate in educational measurement and statistics from SIUC in 1991. He was a visiting assistant professor in technology at SIUC from 1986 to 1992, when he joined the industrial technology faculty at Purdue University. The winner of numerous honors, Stephens was named University Faculty Scholar at Purdue last year. He lives in West Lafayette, Ind.
Ashley earned a master's degree in speech pathology from SIUC. An expert in the field of post-traumatic brain injury, he is co-founder and president of the Centre for Neuro Skills, which offers in-patient rehabilitation at three locations.
Ashley
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Engineering: 1:30 p.m., Saturday, May 11, SIU Arena. Osbert L. Lomax, assistant plant manager at AmerenUE's Labadie, Mo., generating station, will give the address and receive the Alumni Achievement Award.
Lomax, a certified project management professional, received his bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering technology in 1979. He was founding president of Blacks in Engineering and Allied Technologies, a student group focused on retaining minority engineering students. He received the Harper-Jefferson Academic Achievement award, named after the dean of engineering, Thomas Jefferson. Lomax became assistant plant manager at AmerenUE's Labadie generating station, one of the largest coal-fired producers of electricity in the Midwest, in January 2002. Prior to that, he spent nearly 23 years with Kansas City Power & Light in a variety of positions, including manager of plant services, engineering supervisor and superintendent of construction services. He lives in Chesterfield, Mo.
Lomax
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Graduate School: 7 p.m. Saturday, May 11, SIU Arena. Traditionally, there is no guest speaker for this program. However, the Alumni Association will honor its outstanding thesis award winner, Chad S. Briggs.
A student in the applied psychology doctoral program, Briggs also is the winner of the Midwestern Association of Graduate Schools' Distinguished Master's Thesis Award. He will receive $500 from each organization.
His thesis, "Supermaximum Security Prisons and Institutional Violence: An Impact Assessment," examined a corrections model in use for more than two decades designed to house and control the "worst of the worst." Using a sophisticated statistical analysis model, Briggs found that the high security facilities do not produce a significant decrease in institutional violence. He offered possible explanations for the failure and suggested directions for future research.
He lives in Makanda.
Law: 4 p.m., Saturday, May 11, Shryock Auditorium. J. Timothy Eaton, a partner in the Chicago law firm of Ungaretti & Harris, will give the address and receive the Alumni Achievement Award.
Eaton
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A 1973 graduate of Miami University, Eaton earned his law degree, cum laude, in 1977 from the SIU School of Law and his master of laws degree from Washington University School of Law in 1979.
He is president of the Illinois State Bar Association, serves as a director of the Federal Bar Association and is a delegate to the American Bar Association House of Delegates. A prolific writer, Eaton is the author of a comprehensive textbook on appellate practice in Illinois. He concentrates on general commercial, products liability, health care and appellate litigation in his practice.
Liberal Arts: 5 p.m., Friday, May 10, SIU Arena. There is no speaker. Entrepreneur Thomas Y. Chung will receive the Alumni Achievement Award and an honorary doctor of humanities degree.
Chung
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Chung immigrated to the United States from Korea in 1958. After studying economics at Long Beach State University, he came to SIUC, where he earned his master's degree in economics in 1962. He is a self-made businessman and successful entrepreneur. He is founder, president and CEO of His and Her Hair Goods in Los Angeles; chairman of the board of Nara Bank/Nara Bancorp, a Los Angeles-based Korean-American banking corporation that serves small- to medium-sized minority-owned businesses and consumers; member of the board of directors of Chagel Corp; and president and CEO of Evergrow Industrial Co.
This year, Chung provided $338,000 to the College of Liberal Arts to augment the Thomas and Chaney Chung Endowment for Scholarships in Economics. He lives in Los Angeles.
Mass Communication and Media Arts: 1:30 p.m., Saturday, May 11, Shryock Auditorium. Public affairs communication expert Oscar H. Gandy Jr. will give the address; film director and producer Steven R. James will receive the Alumni Achievement Award.
Gandy is the Herbert I. Schiller Information and Society term professor at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. He previously was director of the Center for Communication Research at Howard University.
Gandy received a doctorate in public affairs communication from Stanford University in 1976. He is the author of "The Panoptic Sort" and "Beyond Agenda Setting," two books that explore issues of information and public policy. His most recent work is in the area of communication and race and the ways in which media frame racial comparisons. He lives in Philadelphia.
James
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James is best known as the award-winning director, producer and co-editor of "Hoop Dreams," the widely acclaimed documentary that won virtually every major critics prize and journalism award, including a Peabody and the Robert F. Kennedy Award. "Hoop Dreams" was the first documentary to open or close the prestigious New York Film Festival. James won the Directors Guild Award for "Hoop Dreams," received a nomination for an Academy Award for editing and won an A.C.E. Editing Award.
He received a master of fine arts in film production from SIUC after earning a bachelor of science degree in communications arts from James Madison University in Virginia.
He just completed his first documentary since "Hoop Dreams." Seven years in the making, "Stevie" is a feature-length documentary about a poor young man from rural Southern Illinois for whom James once was a Big Brother. Also, James is nearing completion of "The New Americans," a six-hour PBS mini-series following the lives of contemporary immigrants and refugees. He is director and executive director of the mini-series.
James is writing and will direct a feature on the life and career of baseball great Roberto Clemente. He lives in Chicago.
Science: 8:30 a.m., Saturday, May 11, Shryock Auditorium. Marcin M. Majda, professor of chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley and associate faculty scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, will give the address and receive the Alumni Achievement Award.
Majda
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Majda earned his doctorate in chemistry from SIUC in 1980. After a post-doctoral appointment at the University of Illinois for two years, he joined the chemistry faculty at the University of California, Berkeley. He became an associate professor in 1988 and full professor in 1996. Last year, he became chemistry department vice chair for the physical chemistry graduate program.
He also is an associate faculty scientist in the materials sciences division of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Majda is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Solid State Electrochemistry and recently completed a five-year term on the board of directors of the Society for Electroanalytical Chemistry. He lives in Berkeley, Calif.
SIU School of Medicine: Noon, Sunday, May 19, Sangamon Auditorium, University of Illinois at Springfield. Sixty-eight physicians and two doctoral students will graduate. Dr. Catherine D. DeAngelis, editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association, is the commencement speaker.
Two alumni will receive the medical school's distinguished alumnus award: Dr. Larry Jones, class of 1976, who returned to his hometown of Harrisburg to practice after completing his family medicine residency; and Dr. Sharon Hull, class of 1987, also a Saline County native, who began practicing in Marion after completing her family practice residency. In 1996, she became assistant dean for student affairs and assistant professor of family and community medicine at the medical school in Carbondale.
- Tom Woolf
May 1, 2002
