Media advisory: Rice commencement ceremonies Friday and Saturday

MEDIA ADVISORY

HOUSTON — MAY 14, 2014

B.J. Almond
713-419-9980
balmond@rice.edu

 Rice commencement ceremonies are Friday and Saturday,
Dr. Helene Gayle will give commencement address Saturday

EVENT: Rice University’s 101st commencement. On Friday night, undergraduate students will cross the stage to receive diploma tubes and be congratulated; the commencement address will be presented Saturday morning and degrees will be conferred to the group as a whole. Students will NOT walk across the stage to receive diplomas Saturday; Friday night is the only photo op for students crossing the stage. Fireworks will light up the sky after Friday night’s ceremony.

DATE: Friday and Saturday, May 16 and 17.

TIME: 7 p.m. Friday and 9 a.m. Saturday.

SPEAKER: Dr. Helene Gayle, president and CEO of the global poverty-fighting organization CARE USA, will present the commencement address Saturday morning. CARE’s mission is to serve individuals and families in the poorest communities in the world. Gayle has led the organization since 2006. CARE works in 87 countries around the world to support more than 900 development and emergency projects.

LOCATION: Outdoors on Rice’s Academic Quadrangle west of Lovett Hall (rain location: Tudor Fieldhouse), 6100 Main St. Photographers must check in at the Welcome Center in Lovett Hall, Room 103B, to get a black robe required for access to the quadrangle and instructions for where they are allowed to shoot. They must be accompanied by a member of the News and Media Relations team to the area on the quad designated for photographers. The Welcome Center will open at 6 p.m. Friday and 7:30 a.m. Saturday.

PARKING: News media may enter at Entrance 1 at 6100 Main St. and park along the right side of the road by the Student Health Center. Press credentials are required for admission through Entrance 1.

CAMPUS MAP: www.rice.edu/maps/maps.html. (Look for the red circle with No. 22 for the road where media can park.)

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 Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation’s top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of Architecture, Business, Continuing Studies, Engineering, Humanities, Music, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences and is home to the Baker Institute for Public Policy. With 3,920 undergraduates and 2,567 graduate students, Rice’s undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is 6.3-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice has been ranked No. 1 for best quality of life multiple times by the Princeton Review and No. 2 for “best value” among private universities by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance. To read “What they’re saying about Rice,” go to http://tinyurl.com/AboutRiceU.

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Office of News and Media Relations – MS 300, Rice University, 6100 Main St., Houston, TX 77005