More than 7,000 to graduate from UConn

Undergraduate commencement ceremonies at the University of Connecticut. UConn Magazine photo.

More than 7,000 students with degrees in dozens of specialties will graduate from the University of Connecticut during a succession of ceremonies  in May in Storrs and Hartford.

The graduate degree ceremony will be held on Saturday, May 8 and will be  joined that afternoon by undergraduate ceremonies for the Schools of Pharmacy and Fine Arts, and the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources.

Students enrolled in the Center for Continuing Studies also will graduate on  Saturday and the School of Social Work will have a recognition ceremony.

On Sunday, May 9, the largest group – bachelor’s degree candidates in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences – will celebrate their graduation during twin ceremonies at 12:30 and 4:30 p.m. in the Harry A. Gampel Pavilion. The dual events allow the university to accommodate the largest number of family and friends possible.

The graduation of more than 2,600 students in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, will bring more than 10,000 family and friends to campus.

Michael Turvey, an emeritus professor of psychology and nationally known for his work in perception and coordinated movement, will deliver the keynote speech at both events.

Also during the CLAS ceremonies, an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters will be awarded to Narissa Ramdhani, a former anti-apartheid activist and 1992 UConn graduate.

Ramdhani, a leading South African scholar and cultural archivist, completed her bachelor’s, honor’s and master’s degrees in South Africa as she grew increasingly active in the anti-apartheid resistance movement.

She was forced to leave the country in 1985 and was offered refuge at UConn, where she earned another master’s degree. Ramdhani will receive her honorary degree during the 12:30 p.m. ceremony.

During the afternoon event, Wendell G. Minor, who has illustrated and designed covers for more than 2,000 books encompassing a wide range of subjects, including children’s and adult books, also will receive an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters.

Also graduating Sunday are students in the Schools of Business, Education, Engineering and Nursing.

Other ceremonies and speakers on Saturday are:

• PharmD Commencement: Saturday, at 9 a.m. Lewis B. Rome Ballroom. Speaker: Joseph T. DiPiro, executive dean of the South Carolina College of Pharmacy, University of South Carolina, and the Medical University of South Carolina. He is editor of The American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education. DiPiro was president of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy, is a fellow of the college and has served on the Research Institute’s Board of Trustees.

• Bachelor of General Studies:  Saturday at 1 p.m. Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts.  Speaker: Julie Armstrong Muth, director of nursing/quality at New York Presbyterian Hospital/Payne Whitney, Manhattan. Throughout her 35-year nursing career,  she has had held numerous positions at facilities in New York state as well as Stamford Hospital and New Milford Hospital. She earned her BGS in 1995 and a master’s degree in 2008, both from UConn.

• UConn Graduate School: Saturday at 1 p.m. Harry A. Gampel Pavilion. Speaker: Scott S. Cowen, president of Tulane University in New Orleans. And he will receive an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters. Cowen, who earned his bachelor’s degree from UConn in 1968, led Tulane – which was largely underwater – and the local community through the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Named one of the 10 Best College Presidents in the United States by Time magazine in 2009, he was one of only four recipients nationwide of the Carnegie Corporation Academic Leadership Awards.

• School of Pharmacy: Saturday at 4 p.m. Lewis B. Rome Ballroom. Speaker: Joseph D. Palo, president of JD Pharma, LLC, a private pharmaceutical consulting firm. Palo has more than 37 years experience in the pharmaceutical industry. A licensed pharmacist, Palo earned a bachelor’s degree in pharmacy and a master’s degree in business administration at UConn. He is the longest serving member of the UConn School of Pharmacy Advisory Board, sitting as board chair for three years. In 2007, he was a named a Distinguished Alumnus by the UConn School of Pharmacy Alumni Association.

• School of Fine Arts: Saturday at 5 p.m., Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts. Speaker: Robert Glidden, one of the nation’s foremost experts on university accreditation and standards and retired president of Ohio University. An Iowa native, he earlier served on the music faculties of Wright State University and Indiana University and, from 1969 to 1972, he was associate professor, director of graduate studies in music, and chairman of music education at the University of Oklahoma. He then became the executive director of the National Association of Schools of Music and the National Association for Schools of Art in Washington, D.C., before moving to Bowling Green State University, where he was a professor and dean of the College of Musical Arts. In 1979, Glidden became dean of Florida State University’s School of Music, and he was appointed provost and vice president for academic affairs at FSU in 1991.

• College of Agriculture and Natural Resources: Saturday at 6 p.m. Harry A. Gampel Pavilion. Speaker: Jerold Mande, Deputy Under Secretary for Food Safety, U.S. Department of Agriculture. Mande, who earned a degree in nutritional sciences from UConn in 1978, leads and oversees the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), USDA’s public health agency that ensures the nation’s commercial meat, poultry, and egg products are safe, wholesome, and correctly labeled and packaged. Earlier in his career, as senior adviser to the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, he helped shape national policy on food safety and tobacco and led the design of the Nutrition Facts label that now appears on virtually all packaged foods.

Other ceremonies and speakers on Sunday are:

• The Neag School of Education: Sunday at 9 a.m. Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts. Speaker: Geno Auriemma, head coach of the NCAA Champion UConn women’s basketball team. During his 25 years as head coach at UConn, Auriemma has won seven national championships while graduating every four-year student-athlete who has played for him. Auriemma has been inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame. He also will coach the 2012 U.S. Olympic women’s basketball team.

• School of Business Administration: Sunday at 9 a.m. Harry A. Gampel Pavilion. Speaker: Keith R. Fox, chief executive officer of the Keith and Pamela Fox Family Foundation, which is focused on children’s health and education, will speak. His philanthropic work also includes a board seat at Lucille Packard Children’s Hospital, a board seat at the University of Connecticut Foundation, and an executive cabinet position for the president of Cal Poly. Fox was founder and CEO of Brandsoft, an enterprise software and consulting company focused on brand management. Before founding Brandsoft, he was vice president of worldwide corporate marketing at Cisco Systems. He earned his undergraduate degree from the UConn School of Business, majoring in marketing, in 1980.

• School of Engineering: Sunday at 12:30 p.m. Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts. Speaker: Robert P. Madonna, founder and chief executive officer of Savant Systems, the first and only Apple-based automation and entertainment system. Madonna, who earned a degree in biomedical engineering from UConn in 1982, also founded Excel Switching, a leading provider of open-programmable switches. The firm was later acquired by Lucent Technologies.

• School of Nursing: Sunday at 4 p.m. Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts. Beverly Malone, chief executive officer for the National League for Nursing, the nation’s leading voice for nurse educators. A vocal advocate for health care reform to create universal health insurance coverage, she led NLN support for the extension of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program when it was set to expire in 2008. Prior to joining the NLN, Malone was general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), the United Kingdom’s largest professional union of nurses with more than 390,000 members. She also served two terms as president of the American Nurses Association, representing 180,000 nurses in the United States.

• UConn Health Center: More than 100 new physicians and dentists will receive their degrees at 2 p.m. on Sunday, May 16, at the Connecticut Convention Center in Hartford. Speaker: Samuel Shem, pen name of Stephen Bergman, is a physician, novelist, playwright and activist. A graduate of Harvard College who earned an M.D. from Harvard Medical School, Shem is a Rhodes Scholar and was on the faculty of Harvard Medical School for three decades. The Lancet called The House of God one of the two “most significant medical novels of the 20th century.” His 2008 novel, The Spirit of the Place, about a primary care doctor in a small town, won the National Best Book Award 2008 in general fiction and literature from USA Book News, and the Independent Publishers National Book Award in literary fiction 2009. Shem has given more than 50 commencement speeches on How to Stay Human in Medicine, and lives in Boston and Costa Rica.

• UConn School of Law: 250 UConn-trained lawyers will graduate at 10 a.m. on Sunday, May 23, on the grounds of the UConn Law School on Elizabeth Street in Hartford.  Speaker: Linda Greenhouse, the Knight Distinguished Journalist-in-Residence and Joseph Goldstein Lecturer in Law at the Yale Law School. For 30 years, she covered the U.S. Supreme Court for the New York Times. During her career at the Times, Greenhouse won a Pulitzer Prize, the American Political Science Association’s Carey McWilliams award, the John Chancellor Award for Excellence in Journalism and the Goldsmith Career Award for Excellence in Journalism.

Posted May 6, 2010

Is prayer 'unconstitutional'?

The last National Day of Prayer… well, maybe.

This Thursday, May 6 will mark the National Day of Prayer, which was first authorized in 1952, when President Truman signed into law a joint resolution of Congress to set aside an annual National Day of Prayer.

Congress amended the law in 1988 and gave the president the authority to designate the first Thursday in May as the National Day of Prayer.

The law reads, “The president shall issue each year a proclamation designating the first Thursday in May as a National Day of Prayer on which the people of the United States may [my italics for emphasis] turn to God in prayer and meditation at churches, in groups and as individuals.”

Now, a Federal judge – U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb of Madison, Wisconsin – has ruled that the National Day of Prayer violates the First Amendment’s prohibition of government endorsement of religion and therefore is unconstitutional.

Suit by Freedom From Religion Foundation

The case began in 2008 when the Freedom From Religion Foundation, a Madison-based group of atheists and agnostics, filed a lawsuit against the federal government that claimed a National Day of Prayer violates the separation of church and state.

Originally, the suit was against President Bush but was changed to reflect President Obama’s succession, and now the Obama administration must appeal the decision within 60 days in order for the tradition to continue.

Co-President of the Freedom From Religion Foundation Annie Laurie Gaylor contends that the National Day of Prayer creates hostility toward atheists and questions their patriotism.

“Our government is saying that we are not good Americans because we don’t pray,” Gaylor said, according to The Tennessean newspaper in Nashville.

In her ruling, Judge Crabb states, “No one can doubt the important role that prayer plays in the spiritual life of a believer, [but] recognizing the importance of prayer to many people does not mean that the government may enact a statute in support of it, any more than the government may encourage citizens to fast during the month of Ramadan, attend a synagogue, purify themselves in a sweat lodge or practice rune magic.”

Crabb admitted that many people are not “harmed” by the president proclaiming a day of prayer – because they are “unaware of the message,” or it was “not directed at them,” or they approve of the observance.

“However, individuals such as (the) plaintiffs, who do not pray and feel marginalized as a result of the government’s message of prayer, suffer a distinct harm,” the judge wrote.

National Day of Prayer will be observed this year

There is debate about whether prayer – as opposed to religion – is unconstitutional.

President of Liberty Counsel and Dean of the Liberty University School of Law in Lynchburg,  VA Mathew Staver states, “If the National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional, then the Constitution, itself, is unconstitutional.”

“The National Day of Prayer – or prayer itself – is older than the Constitution,” Staver said. “There is no question (this ruling) will be overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.”

In fact, while Judge Crabb issued a 66-page decision that would prevent President Obama from issuing an executive order calling for the celebration of a National Day of Prayer, she stayed her own injunction pending the resolution of any appeals.

“I understand that many may disagree with [my] conclusion and some may even view it as critical of prayer or those who pray. That is unfortunate,” Judge Crabb wrote.

So, for this year anyway, it will not affect the 59th annual observance of the National Day of Prayer on Thursday, May 6, because the ruling will not take effect until all appeals are exhausted. What will happen next year is uncertain.

For the record, the Obama White House issued a prayer-day proclamation last year, and will apparently do so again this year while the court ruling is being appealed. Obama did not hold any public events at the White House as previous presidents, including Bush, have done.

The date’s place in history

In an April 15, 2010 news release, The National Day of Prayer Task Force noted that the tradition of designating an official day of prayer actually began with the Continental Congress in 1775, after which President Washington issued a National Day of Thanksgiving Proclamation.

Ever since, the task force said, American presidents have made similar proclamations and “appeals to the Almighty.”

Historically, all 50 governors, along with presidents, have issued proclamations in honor of the National Day of Prayer.

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), himself a former judge and one of the 31 congressmen who weighed in on the case, blasted Crabb, and said that “it was obvious” the federal judge “had not received a very good education” in American history.

“If she had, she would have known that at the Constitutional Convention, after five weeks of nothing being accomplished, Benjamin Franklin stood up and said, ‘Why is it that we have not once applied to the Father of Lights to illuminate understanding?’”

Posted May 6, 2010