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WASHINGTON
-- More than 2,300 students received undergraduate
degrees Saturday during Howard University 's 140th Commencement.
Including 101 graduates who received doctorate degrees, the
largest number ever in the 50-year history of the university's
Ph.D. program. Despite rain, thousands of parents and friends
from across the globe attended the ceremony, which was forced
inside this year due to inclement weather.
American Express Chairman and CEO Kenneth I. Chenault was
the Commencement Orator.
The graduation was broadcast on Howard's radio station, WHUR-FM,
and the university's television station, WHUT-TV. To view
the commencement excercise its entirety, visit http://www.howard.edu/commencement/2008/webcast.cfm
This year, Howard granted honorary doctorate degrees to Rutgers’
women’s basketball coach C. Vivian Stringer, the Honorable
Gabrielle Kirk McDonald, currently a judge with the Iran-United
States Claims Tribunal in The Hague, and renowned astrophysicist
Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson.
Stringer is one of America’s most prominent athletic
coaches with one of the best records in the history of women’s
basketball in her nearly four decades as a head coach. A 2001
inductee into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame, she
ranks third in career victories in Division I women’s
basketball history. A three-time National Coach of the Year
as voted by her peers, she has led her teams to 21 appearances
in the NCAA Tournament and is the first African-American coach
to reach the 800 victory plateau. She is the first coach in
men’s or women’s basketball to lead three different
programs to the NCAA Tournament Final Four.
McDonald is in her second assignment in The Hague, Netherlands.
Her first was with the International Criminal Tribunal for
the former Yugoslavia as one of the original judges elected
by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1993, and
she presided over the first trial. In 1997, she was elected
President of the Tribunal. Secretary of State Madeleine K.
Albright said of Judge McDonald, “She is one of the
pioneer civil rights litigators in our country. . .And she
has since become a pioneer justice for international war crimes
law…I am confident that she will continue to be a voice
for justice wherever she goes.”
Tyson is the first astrophysicist appointed to the Frederick
P. Rose Directorship of the Hayden Planetarium in 1996 at
the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. His
professional research interests are broad, but include star
formation, exploding stars, dwarf galaxies, and the structure
of our Milky Way. He obtains his data from the Hubble Space
Telescope, as well as from telescopes in California, New Mexico,
Arizona, and the Andes Mountains of Chile. In 2001, he was
appointed by President Bush to serve on a 12-member commission
that studied the Future of the U.S. Aerospace Industry. The
final report was published in 2002 and contained recommendations
(for Congress and the major agencies of the government) that
would promote a thriving future of transportation, space exploration,
and national security.
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