Spring Commencement

Class of 2010

Your big day is about to arrive!

Dean Cheng-i Wei and AGNR Academic Programs would like to offer you early congratulations on successful completion of a rigorous program of study and pass along some information related to this Spring's Commencement ceremonies.

CAMPUS

Campus-wide Commencement is scheduled for 8:00 p.m., Thursday, May 20, 2010 in the Comcast Center. Tickets are required! Students should be robed and assembled for the processional at 6:45 p.m. outside Comcast Center in Lot 4b. Seating for guests will open at 6:00 p.m. Notices will be posted so that guests will know from which side of the arena each college will process. Parking will be open in the parking lots around Comcast Center. The Processional will begin promptly at 7:40 p.m. President Mote will confer degrees following a program which will include a student speaker, Onyinyechi Eke. There will also be a featured student-selected commencement speaker, Victoria Reggie Kennedy.

Student Speaker: Onyinyechi Eke

Onyinyechi Eke arrived at Maryland inspired by her parents' perseverance and determined to return to her native Nigeria as a doctor. Eke and her family weren't expecting to move to the United States four years ago. After her father retired from an oil company working for a government agency, the Eke family was unexpectedly forced out of its house. She and her family of five moved to Maryland and spent two years in a one-bedroom apartment in Lanham. Despite facing medical and employment difficulties, her parents encouraged Eke and her siblings.

"My home is never without jokes or storytelling," she says. "My parents are always interested in my classes even when they do not understand them."

Eke spent a year at Montgomery College, where her talent earned her work as a supplementary biology instructor. At Maryland, Eric S. Haag hired Eke to work in his on-campus laboratory as a research assistant performing DNA analysis on a hybrid species of roundworm.

He jokes that her two Bs among otherwise perfect grades make her human.

She's involved in her community through America Reads * America Counts and HOPE worldwide, which offers low-income youth after-school activities.

Two years ago, she participated in Howard University's prestigious Summer Medical and Dental Education Program as a dental student assistant. She received honors from the College of Chemical and Life Sciences and the Office of Multi-Ethnic Student Education, and Maryland Delegate and Senatorial scholarships.

"All of this recognition has been heartily deserved and yet received with the humility and grace that is the cornerstone of Onyi's lovely personality," says Wendy R. Laughlin, director of the university's Reed-Yorke Health Professions Advising Office.

Eke has been applying to medical school and hopes her experiences here will help when she returns home. "Nigeria has a broken health-care system and is dysfunctional partly because there are very few research laboratories in the country," she says.

"As Onyi said to me, 'Once your hand is dipped in oil, it is hard to get it off,'" says Haag, "which I take to mean that research has changed her forever."

Main Speaker: Victoria Reggie Kennedy

Victoria Reggie Kennedy, widow of U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy, is an attorney as well as an advocate for women, children, and families, particularly in the areas of economic opportunity, health care, violence prevention and homelessness. She practiced law in the private sector for nearly two decades, with a special emphasis on the regulation and operations of financial institutions. Kennedy is the co-founder and trustee of the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United State Senate in Boston and a member of the advisory board of the Edward M. Kennedy Oral History Project at the Miller Center at the University of Virginia.

She played an active role in the re-election campaigns of her late husband, who served in the Senate for 47 years and died in August 2009. In connection with his 1994 campaign, she created a Massachusetts Women's Council. She also served as co-chair of Catholics for Obama-Biden during the 2008 presidential campaign.

Kennedy is founding president of Common Sense about Kids and Guns, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that works to reduce gun deaths and injuries. She regularly speaks and writes about issues that impact the lives of families, as well as the political process. She has been a frequent visiting lecturer at the American University Washington Semester Program and has published articles in several media outlets, including The Washington Post. From 1997 to 2007, she was a trustee of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence in Washington, D.C. She is a past member of the Annual Day of National Concern about Young People and Gun Violence.

President Barack Obama recently appointed Kennedy to the Board of Trustees for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. She is also a member of the board of overseers of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, as well as on the boards of Catholic Democrats of Massachusetts and the National Leadership Roundtable on Church Management. She earned a bachelor's degree, magna cum laude, from Newcomb College in 1976 and her juris doctorate, summa cum laude, from Tulane Law School in 1979. Prior to entering private practice, she served as a law clerk for Judge Robert A. Sprecher of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago. She has a blended family of five children, four grandchildren, and three Portuguese water dogs.

For more information on the main commencement ceremony, please visit the main commencement website.

College of Agriculture & Natural Resources

The formal graduation ceremony for the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources will be held at 3:30 p.m., Friday, May 21, 2010 in the university's Memorial Chapel. All candidates should be gowned and report to the West Chapel (at the rear of the Main Chapel) by 2:45 p.m. Department/Major signs will be posted and candidates will line up outside on the Chapel Drive side of the building at their appropriate sign in alphabetical order and under the direction of faculty marshals. The processional will begin at 3:15 p.m. with the platform party, which includes the Dean, college officials, and special guests. Following the platform party will be the faculty. The student processional will then enter through the main entrance of the Chapel, wait until the platform party and faculty are positioned, then process down the center aisle to the front for seating.

In case of inclement weather, candidates will line up on the balcony level of the Chapel under the direction of faculty marshals who will organize them alphabetically by major and degree. They will then return to the main level and march in from either side of the front of the Chapel, march to the rear, and then march back to the front for seating.

At the appropriate point in the ceremony, under the leadership of the marshals, candidates will move forward to be recognized and congratulated. They will return to their seats for the remainder of the ceremony.

Student Speaker: Curtis Hubert Bennett, III

Curtis Bennett graduated in December with a bachelor's degree in Environmental Science and Policy. He is a recipient of the prestigious Banneker-Key Scholarship from the University of Maryland. During his time at Maryland, Bennett was a member of the Gemstone Program, the University Honors Program, Primannum Honor Society, and the National Society of Collegiate Scholars. In the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, he served as a Student Ambassador and a Peer Mentor. Bennett currently works as a naturalist at Clearwater Nature Center, and has also volunteered at the Banfield Pet Hospital in Annapolis. Additionally, he has worked on an individual research project to learn about the use of night vision cameras to gather information about local wildlife. After graduation, Bennett will attend graduate school at the University of Delaware. He is from Bowie, Maryland and is a 2005 graduate of DeMatha Catholic High School in Hyattsville, Maryland.

Student Speaker: Margaret Anne Lilly

Margaret Lilly is graduating with a bachelor's degree in Animal Sciences. She is the recipient of the American Society of Animal Sciences Academic Achievement Award, Omicron Delta Kappa's Top Ten Freshmen Award, and the W.R. Winslow Scholarship from the College of AGNR. During her time at Maryland, Lilly was a member of the Gemstone Program and the University Honors Program, and worked as a veterinary assistant at Norbeck Animal Clinic in Rockville, Maryland, and at Rocky Gorge Animal Hospital in Laurel, Maryland. She also worked as an insect zoo docent at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC. In this position, she cared for several species of insects and educated the public about the organisms. Lilly currently works as an equine and rotational grazing field assistant at the Central Maryland Research and Education Center in Clarksville, Maryland. She is from Silver Spring, Maryland.

Share This ShareThis

For more information, contact Christina Lyerly

Last updated: 05/12/2010