Washington University to Award Nearly 3,000 Degrees Today

Washington University holds its graduation ceremony this morning at 8:30am.

According to a university press release, the school will award 2,843 degrees to 2,719 undergraduate, graduate and professional students. The university also will bestow honorary degrees on five individuals.

Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton will confer degrees at the 150th Commencement ceremony, which begins at 8:30 a.m. in Brookings Quadrangle on the Danforth Campus. Commencement will be held outside rain or shine.

Streaming video of the ceremony in the Quad will be broadcast online at commencement.wustl.edu. 

Holocaust survivor and human rights activist Elie Wiesel, will deliver the Commencement address. The title of his talk is “Memory and Ethics.” He'll also receive an honorary doctor of humane letters degree from WUSTL during the ceremony.

Also at Commencement, honorary degrees will be awarded to:

• John H. Biggs, PhD, former CEO of TIAA-CREF and former vice chancellor for administration and finance at Washington University, doctor of humane letters;
• Shirley Ann Jackson, PhD, the 18th president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, N.Y., the oldest technological university in the United States, doctor of science;
• Griffin P. Rodgers, MD, director of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases of the National Institutes of Health, doctor of science; and
• George W. von Mallinckrodt, KBE, president of Schroders plc, a global asset management company, doctor of laws.