Contact:	Fred Knubel	
		Director of Public Information
		212-854 5573, fhk1@columbia.edu	FOR IMMEDIATE USE
									May 9, 1997



Columbia To Graduate 8,900 May 21

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President Rupp To Speak and Confer Honorary Degrees At Colorful Outdoor Commencement Ceremonies Completing the University's 243rd Year

More than 8,930 students will receive their degrees and celebrate them in traditionally high-spirited outdoor commencement exercises at Columbia University on Wednesday, May 21. They are expected to draw a crowd of almost 30,000 family and friends to fill the spacious central lawns of the University. The ceremonies will begin at 10:30 A.M. with a colorful academic procession to the Alma Mater statue on the steps of the main plaza and continue there against a cascade of blue and gold banners hung between the classical columns of Low Memorial Library. The exercises will complete the University's 243rd year. Columbia, founded in 1754, is the oldest college in New York and this year celebrates the 100th anniversary of its move to Morningside Heights. Following the University's custom, the president, George Rupp, will deliver the commencement address. He will confer graduate and undergraduate degrees in the University's 15 schools, and affiliated Barnard College and Teachers College. He will also confer five honorary degrees and the University Medal for Excellence, given annually to a distinguished younger alumnus. (Confidential until 10:30 A.M. May 21, 1997: Scheduled to receive honorary degrees are Sydney Brenner, the renowned British geneticist; Kathryn Wasserman Davis, the writer and lecturer on foreign affairs and president of the Shelby Cullom Davis Foundation; Eric Hobsbawm, the influential historian and author of Age of Extremes; Donald Keene, the emeritus professor at Columbia considered the world's leading interpreter of Japanese literature and culture to the West, and Representative John Lewis of Georgia, the civil rights leader and chief Democratic Deputy Whip in the House. United States District Judge Joseph A. Greenaway Jr., a 1978 graduate of Columbia College, will receive The University Medal for Excellence, awarded to an alumnus under the age of 45. EDITORS: These names may not be used before commencement ceremonies May 21. The honors are not given in absentia. Please confirm the presentations with this office after 10:30 A.M. Wednesday, 212-854-5573.) Prominent speakers at separate diploma presentation ceremonies in the individual schools during the week will include author Jonathan Kozol at Columbia College Tuesday, writer Anna Quindlen at Barnard College Tuesday, former news anchor Walter Cronkite at the Journalism School Tuesday, Children's Defense Fund founder Marian Wright Edelman at the Law School Wednesday, NIH director Harold Varmus at the College of Physicians and Surgeons Wednesday and former Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis at the School of Public Health Wednesday. Commencement week at Columbia begins this Sunday, May 18, with the interfaith Baccalaureate Service at 4 P.M. in St. Paul's Chapel on campus for students of Columbia College, the School of General Studies, the School of Engineering and Applied Science, Barnard College and the School of Nursing who will receive undergraduate degrees Wednesday. Robert Thurman, Khapa Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddist Studies at Columbia, will be the baccalaureate speaker. University Chaplain Jewelnel Davis will preside, with opening words by H. Scott Matheney, Columbia Presbyterian minister. The Faculty Charge will be delivered by Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature Marcellus Blount, and students will speak. Presiding at the 10:30 A.M. commencement exercises Wednesday will be Peter Awn, professor of religion; the invocation will be given by Chaplain Davis. Presidential Awards for Outstanding Teaching will be presented to five members of the Columbia faculty and three graduate students. After commencement, Joseph A. Greenaway Jr., federal district court judge in New Jersey, will address the University's Alumni Federation luncheon in the Rotunda of Low Library. Following is a list of additional commencement activities at the schools and affiliated institutions Sunday through Friday, May 18 to 23: UNDERGRADUATE SCHOOLS Columbia College, Class Day exercises, 10 A.M. Tuesday on South Field; address by author Jonathan Kozol; remarks by President George Rupp, Dean Austin Quigley, and the class valedictorian and salutatorian; Dean of Students Roger Lehecka to introduce Alumni Association President Carlos R. Munoz, CC'57, to present awards; reception following on Hamilton and Furnald lawns. School of Engineering and Applied Science, Class Day ceremony 2:30 P.M. Tuesday on South Field; address by environmentalist David Marks, the James Craft Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Massachusetts Institution of Technology; remarks by President George Rupp, Dean of Students Chris Colombo, valedictorian and salutatorian; Donald Ross, SEAS'53, president of the Alumni Association, to present Distinguished Faculty Teaching Awards;Dean Zvi Galil to present the class. School of General Studies, ceremony Tuesday at 5 P.M. in Kathryn Bache Miller Theatre; address by E.R. Shipp, assistant professor of journalism at Columbia and Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The New York Daily News.

GRADUATE AND PROFESSIONAL SCHOOLS

Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, graduation ceremony Wednesday at 2 P.M. in St. Paul's Chapel; Dean Bernard Tschumi to speak; diplomas presented. School of the Arts, graduation ceremony Wednesday at 1:30 P.M. in Miller Theatre; address by Time magazine art critic Robert Hughes. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, convocation for Ph.D. candidates Tuesday at 3:30 P.M. in St. Paul's Chapel; address, "Miracles and Wonders," by Caroline Walker Bynum, professor of history; Alexandre Refregier, Ph.D. candidate in physics, to speak on behalf of the candidates; Dean Eduardo Macagno to present Dean's Award for Distinguished Achievement to R. Gordon Hoxie, 1950 Ph.D. in history; reception follows on Philosophy Hall lawn; reception for all GSAS graduates Wednesday at noon in 301 Philosophy. Columbia Business School, recognition ceremony Tuesday at 6 P.M. at City Center, West 55th Street east of Seventh Avenue; address by Shelly Lazarus, '70 MBA, chief executive officer of Ogilvy and Mather Worldwide; Surendra S. Singhvi Prize for Scholarship in the Classroom to be presented to Laurie Simon Hodrick, professor of business at Columbia. School of International and Public Affairs, ceremony Tuesday at 2:30 P.M. on Ancell Plaza (International Affairs Terrace); address by Leslie H. Gelb, president, Council on Foreign Relations; SIPA Student Association presidents Catalina Ruiz-Healy and Bart Oosterveld to speak. Graduate School of Journalism, Journalism Day Tuesday, 10 A.M. in Journalism Lecture Hall, awards presentation, Pringle Lecture by Bill Buzenberg, former news director of National Public Radio; 7 P.M. in Levien Gymnasium, Walter Cronkite to receive Columbia Journalism Award and speak, champagne reception to follow. School of Law, ceremony Wednesday at 8 P.M. in Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center; address by Marian Wright Edelman, founder and president of the Children's Defense Fund; presentation of Willis Reese Prize for Excellence in Teaching to Law Professor Harvey J. Goldschmid, CC '62, Law (J.D.) '65, and Columbia Law School Association's Distinguished Achievement Award to H.F. (Gerry) Lenfest, Law '58, president of the Lenfest Group. School of Social Work, ceremony Tuesday at 2:30 P.M. in Levien Gymnasium; address by Josephine Nieves, executive director and the first Latina to head the National Association of Social Workers.

HEALTH SCIENCES

Program in Physical Therapy, ceremony Sunday at 2:30 P.M. in Alumni Auditorium; address by Oliver Sacks, author and physician; reception at 4:30 in the Baldwin Lounge of the Clark Conference Center in the Milstein Hospital Building. Programs in Occupational Therapy, ceremony Wednesday at 1:30 P.M. in Alumni Auditorium; address by Mary Foto, president of the American Occupational Therapy Association; reception at the Faculty Club at 3:30. College of Physicians and Surgeons, ceremony Wednesday at 2:30 P.M. in the C-PMC Garden; address by Harold Varmus, director of the National Institutes of Health; reception at 4:30 in Bard Hall Lounge. School of Public Health, ceremony Wednesday at 4 P.M. in Alumni Auditorium; addresses by Michael Dukakis, former Governor of Massachusetts and 1988 Democratic candidate for President, and AIDS activist Mary Fisher. Assistant Professor Marysol Asencio to receive student award for teaching; reception at 5:30 in Riverview Lounge in Hammer Health Sciences Center. School of Nursing, ceremony Wednesday at 5:30 P.M. in the C-PMC Garden; Rheba de Tornyay, dean emeritus of the School of Nursing, University of Washington (Seattle), to speak; reception at 7 P.M. in Baldwin Lounge of the Clark Conference Center in the Milstein Hospital Building. School of Dental and Oral Surgery, ceremony Thursday at 11 A .M. in the C-PMC Garden; Burton Edelstein, Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellow, to speak; reception at 1 P.M. in Bard Hall Lounge.

AFFILIATED SCHOOLS

Barnard College, graduation address by novelist and Pulitzer Prize- winning columnist Anna Quindlen, Barnard '74, at 2:30 P.M. ceremony Tuesday on Lehman Lawn on the Barnard campus at Broadway and 117th Street. Receiving the 1997 Barnard Medal of Honor will be gun control activist Sarah Brady, choreographer Merce Cunningham, PBS journalist Charlayne Hunter- Gault and novelist and screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. Barnard President Judith R. Shapiro and three students will speak. Teachers College, convocation for master's degree candidates Tuesday at 4:30 P.M. in the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine; speakers to include four medalists: Charlayne Hunter-Gault, national correspondent for the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer; James Comer, Maurice Falk Professor of Child Psychiatry at the Yale Child Study Center; Robert P. Coles, psychiatrist and Pulitzer Prize- winning author, and Richard W. Riley, U.S. Secretary of Education. On Wednesday at 2:30 P.M. in Riverside Church, a convocation for those receiving the doctorate will be held. Dean Karen Zumwalt will hood the recipients. 5.9.97 19,122