USU COMMENCEMENT HONORS 2,511 GRADUATES
Utah State University celebrated its 115th undergraduate commencement ceremony Saturday by awarding 2,511 degrees in the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum.
C. Peter Magrath, immediate past-president of the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges, told the crowd to dream large and set high ideals, but also to temper those lofty goals with an important dose of reality.
“Put another way, the smartest approach to life and its challenges, whether we are speaking of our more personal life or our working life, is to seek the good and the attainable instead of losing our way in an endless, frustrating search for the totally perfect,” Magrath said.
He offered five suggestions to the graduates as they move on in life: avoid the “status trap”; be themselves, not who others want them to be; don’t take family and close friends for granted; live with limits; and, give something to the common humanity and world to which all are a part.
Ben Searle, valedictorian for the College of Engineering, also delivered remarks to the graduating class. Searle was selected by a committee of other valedictorians from among the pool of valedictorians from each of the colleges.
Approximately 325 master’s degrees were awarded Friday, and 30 students received doctorate degrees at the graduate ceremony Friday.
The university also gave a number of other honors during the commencement, including:
Honorary Degrees (short biographical info below at bottom of page):– C. Peter Magrath (also Commencement speaker)– Manon Russell– Lorenzo “Ren” Hoopes
D. Wynne Thorne Research Award: DeeVon Bailey, College of Agriculture
Outstanding Graduate Mentor Award: Edmund D. “Butch” Brodie, Jr.
E.G. Peterson Extension Award: Verl Bagley
Eldon J. Gardner Teaching Award: Leigh Monhardt, College of Education and Human Services
Teaching Excellence Awards:
— College of Ag – Rhonda Miller– College of Business – Cindy Durtschi– College of Education and Human Services – Leigh Monhardt– College of Engineering – Gary Green– College of HASS – Brock Dethier– College of Natural Resources – John C. Malechek– College of Science – Gregory Podgorski
Department Teaching Excellence Award:Languages, Philosophy, and Speech Communication department
Student Commencement Speaker: Ben Searle, College of Engineering valedictorian
Honorary Degree recipient bio sketches:
C. Peter Magrath: Immediate past-president of NASULGC, National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges from 1992 through 2005. (This is the nation’s oldest higher education association, and as CEO he represented 215 public research universities on issues of importance to the higher education community.) He was past president of three universities, and brings a broad perspective on higher education issues, including a long history of leadership in international education activities. He is an extremely dynamic speaker with great knowledge of the issues confronting the higher education community in the nation.
Lorenzo (Ren) Hoopes: long and successful career in business and in the civic arena. He held many senior leadership positions with Safeway Stores, which was the world’s largest food retailer. He also served as Executive assistant to U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson. He served in dozens of boards and advisory councils, including 17 years as director of the board of education for the Oakland Unified School District, 20 years as a director of the National Dairy Council, and more than 40 years as a director of the Foundation for American Agriculture.
Manon Caine Russell: has made a life-long commitment to supporting dozens and dozens of charitable causes in Utah. Along with her sister, Kathryn Caine Wanlass, Manon Caine Russell’s name is associated with Utah State University’s world-class performance hall, the signature building for the university’s Caine School of the Arts. She is a member of northern Utah’s preeminent foundation, the Marie Eccles Caine Foundation, which has supported countless organizations in Cache and Box Elder counties, including the Brigham City Museum-Gallery, Cache Children’s Choir and Cache Valley Center for the Arts, the Chamber Music Society of Logan and Musica Reservata. The foundation supports the Stokes Nature Center, the Utah Festival Opera, the Caine Lyric Theatre, Sunshine Terrace, the Unicorn Theatre, Ballet West, KUED-TV, Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company, the Utah Symphony and Opera, to name just a handful. In addition, the organization has supported USU programs in the music department, Utah Public Radio, the Merrill Library, the theatre department, Women’s Center, the interior design department, the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art and many, many more. She is a board member for the Cache Valley Center for the Arts and the Nora Eccles Harrison Art Museum, and she is also on the Dean’s Advancement Council for the College of HASS.
Utah State University: Saturday, May 6, 9:30 a.m. in the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum
Class size 2006: 2,511 (plus 550 in Fall ’05 commencement)
Degrees: Associate’s (235), Bachelor’s (2,273), Certificates (3), Master’s (325), Doctorate (30)
Geographic Origin:States: 49 – 1867 from UtahCountries: 37 Gender: Male (1222) Female (1289) Age Range: Age of youngest graduate: (17); Age of the oldest: (60)Most Popular Degrees: Elementary Education (130); Psychology (113); Family, Consumer and Human Development (104).