Rain or shine, commencement set for May 12

Rain
or shine, commencement set for May 12
…………………………………………………………………

Students and
their families, along with faculty and staff, will gather
on the Academic Quadrangle for Rice’s 88th commencement,
set for Saturday, May 12, starting at 8:30 a.m.

Civil rights
attorney Morris Dees, founder of the Southern Poverty Law
Center, will deliver this year’s commencement address.
In the event of inclement weather, the commencement ceremony
will be held in Autry Court.

Commencement
weekend will include a variety of activities, including
the class of 2001 convocation, the Shepherd School of Music
Presidential Concert and a Presidential Reception. Those
events will be held Friday, May 11, in the Shepherd School’s
Alice Pratt Brown Hall starting at 7:45 p.m. and will be
followed by a 10:15 p.m. fireworks display in the parking
lot of Rice Stadium.

Other weekend
events include the Student Art Exhibit, which will be on
display Friday, May 11, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Saturday,
May 12, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Rice University Art
Gallery in Sewall Hall.

Also during
commencement weekend will be the Jesse H. Jones Graduate
School of Management investiture ceremony and reception,
set for Friday, May 11, from 1 to 5 p.m. at Alice Pratt
Brown Hall.

Students will
be honored for their achievements at Rice at several events,
including the Phi Beta Kappa initiation, which also will
feature the presentation of the Phi Beta Kappa Teaching
Prize, May 11 from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m. A banquet for student
award recipients will be held May 11 from 5:15 to 7:30 p.m.
at the Cohen House. Student athletes also will be honored
at the “R” Association breakfast May 12 at 6 a.m.

But the highlight
of the weekend will be commencement. Dees continues the
lineage of recent distinguished commencement speakers at
Rice, which include former President George Bush, former
German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, novelist Kurt Vonnegut,
former U.S. Secretary of State James A. Baker III, onetime
presidential candidate and former head of the Red Cross
Elizabeth Dole, former presidential candidate and U.S. Sen.
Bill Bradley, Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz and
President Carter.

Members of the
campus community attending commencement should note that
entrances 1 and 2 to the university will be closed May 12.
Parking will be available in the Stadium Lot, accessible
through Entrance 8, or in the North Lot at Entrance 13.

Those not able
to attend commencement can view it over the Internet via
Realvideo and multicast. Visit Rice’s RTV page at <www.rice.edu/rtv>
for more information.

For more information
on Commencement 2001, including the full schedule of events,
visit the Web at <http://alumni.rice.edu/commence.html>
or call (713) 348-5799.