Dear UNC Faculty Colleagues:
We invite you to join us for the joyous events of Commencement Weekend 2013 on Saturday, May 11th and Sunday, May 12th.
Our students’ accomplishments are remarkable, and their friends and families value our roles as teachers, mentors and scholars. Commencement honors our collective commitment to learning and building a sense of community within our University. You’re invited to participate in both events wearing academic regalia, but you are welcome regardless.
The Doctoral Hooding ceremony will take place on Saturday, May 11, at 10 a.m. in the Dean Smith Center. During the ceremony, each graduate will be called to the stage to receive the doctoral hood from his or her advisor. The featured speaker is Dr. Dan Ariely, James B. Duke Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics at Duke University. Dr. Ariely received his master’s degree and doctorate in cognitive psychology from Carolina. His research has transformed our understanding of human decision-making.
Non-hooding faculty members who wish to march in the academic processional should arrive at the Smith Center (entrance D) no later than 9:30 a.m. and congregate in the Press Room on the lower level (take elevators or stairs down to the first floor). Marshals will direct you to the line-up site. Parking will be available in all the lots around the Smith Center. More information about the hooding ceremony is available here.
University Commencement will be held, rain or shine, on Sunday, May 12 at 9:30 a.m. in Kenan Stadium. If it rains during the ceremony, the ceremony may be shortened; in the event of dangerous severe weather, it will be cancelled. Faculty participating in the processional should park in the new Bell Tower deck and gather on the second floor of the Kenan Football Center at 9:00 a.m. From there, Faculty Marshal Valerie Ashby will lead the faculty processional.
This year’s Commencement speaker is Steve Case, co-founder of America Online and CEO of Revolution, an investment firm that has backed more than two dozen companies, including LivingSocial, Zipcar, AddThis, Everyday Health, FedBid and Echo360. He co-founded The Case Foundation with his wife Jean in 1997 to unite the principles of entrepreneurship, innovation and technology to identify, test, prove and scale ideas and models designed to create exponential impact in solving social challenges.
The ceremony will honor our graduating students and the following outstanding recipients of honorary degrees: Steve Case; Bernard Flatow, Davie Award Winner and cultural ambassador to Latin America; Joel Fleishman, UNC alumnus, scholar and philanthropist; Freeman Hrabowski, President of University of Maryland, Baltimore County; and Mary Pope Osborne, UNC alumna and author of many children’s books, including The Magic Treehouse series.
Many of you have attended Commencement in the past, and we welcome you again. For those who have yet to participate in this venerable academic tradition, please join us. We look forward to seeing you there.
More information about Commencement is available at http://commencement.unc.edu/.
Sincerely yours,
Jan Boxill, Chair of the Faculty
Valerie Ashby, Faculty Marshal
