The University of New Mexico
NEWS RELEASE
Media Contact: Sari Krosinsky, (505) 277-1593, michal@unm.edu
May 8, 2009
UNM Commencement Set for May 16 at Tingley Coliseum
Antonio Flores, president and chief executive officer of the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities, will deliver the keynote address at the University of New Mexico spring commencement on Saturday, May 16, at 9 a.m. in Tingley Coliseum at Expo New Mexico (State Fairgrounds). Several precautions will be taken in response to the H1N1 flu, detailed below.
Construction industry leader, philanthropist and community volunteer Robert Stamm, geologist Tim McElvain, Jr., and poet, playwright and essayist Jay Wright will receive honorary degrees at the ceremony.
About 2,453 students are projected to receive degrees from UNM’s Albuquerque and Extended University campuses, as follows: 1,632 bachelor’s degrees, 477 master’s degrees, 75 doctorates, 95 juris doctorates, 75 medical doctorates, 85 pharmacy doctorates, five graduate certificates and nine education specialists. An official degree count is determined following commencement.
At UNM-Gallup, 56 associate degrees and 10 certificates are projected to be awarded; at Los Alamos, 17 associate degrees and two certificates; at Taos 27 associate degrees and nine certificates; and at Valencia, 44 associate degrees and five certificates are expected to be awarded.
UNM Regents’ President Raymond Sanchez will greet graduates on behalf of the UNM Board of Regents. Sanchez and fellow regents, UNM administrators, deans and faculty are among the platform group. UNM President David Schmidly is master of ceremonies, and University Secretary Vivian Valencia is chief marshal. Schmidly will offer congratulatory remarks, confer degrees and recognize honors graduates.
Ashley Fate, president of the Associated Students of UNM, and Judith Zanotti, president of the Alumni Association, will greet students.
The University Band with Chad Simons, conductor, will play a selection of music for the ceremony’s prelude and processional. Graduate Tamra Salmón will sing “Dare to Dream.” Jessica Taylor, graduate student in music, will sing the national anthem and the alma mater.
Robert Abbott is the recipient of the Tom L. Popejoy Dissertation Prize for “Automated Tactics Modeling: Techniques and Application.”
Golden Graduates, the class of 1959, are honored at commencement for their lifelong connection to UNM. UNM Regent James Koch is among this year’s Golden Graduates.
Individual convocation ceremonies are scheduled at various departments and colleges May 13-16. For more information and the convocation schedule, visit graduation.unm.edu.
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Safety Precautions
With lingering concerns over the spread of the H1N1 flu, UNM graduates and their families are being asked to take extra precautions so that commencement remains a joyful experience. Most importantly, if you are sick, please stay home for your own sake and the sake of everyone else. Medical professionals also advise people with chronic illness or who may have a heightened risk of infection to check with their physicians before joining in a large public gathering like commencement.
For the safety and convenience of our graduates, hand washing stations will be available in the Expo New Mexico Creative Arts Center where they will be lining up. Hand sanitizer will also be provided for graduates during the processional line-up. During the ceremony, graduates will be handed their diploma covers, but there will be no accompanying hand shake.
Commencement is the best time of the academic year and one of the most important events of graduates’ life. We want you to join us in insuring it is a happy and safe event.
Antonio R. Flores, Keynote
Antonio R. Flores is the third president and chief executive officer of the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU). Established in 1986, HACU represents 450 colleges and universities that collectively serve two-thirds of the more than 2 million Hispanic students in U.S. higher education across 37 states and Puerto Rico, as well as more than 40 international member institutions.
During his tenure as president of HACU, the association has nearly tripled its membership, budget and programs, improved legislation for Hispanic Serving Institutions, increased annual federal funding for HSIs from $12 million in 1995 to more than $100 million for 2008, and secured millions of dollars in new private funding for HSIs and associate members.
Previously, Flores served as director of programs and services for the Michigan Higher Education Assistance Authority and the Michigan Higher Education Student Loan Authority. He has taught at private and public institutions, community colleges and comprehensive research universities.
Flores holds a Ph.D. in higher education administration from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, a Master of Arts degree in counseling and personnel from Western Michigan University and undergraduate degrees in business administration and elementary education from Universidad de Guadalajara and Centro Normal Regional, Mexico, respectively.
Robert J. Stamm, Honorary Doctor of Engineering
Robert J. Stamm, a lifelong resident of Albuquerque, received a bachelor’s degree from UNM’s School of Engineering in 1942.
After serving as an engineering officer in the U.S. Navy during World War II, he was hired by the construction contracting firm O.G. Bradbury. In 1958, the firm became the Bradbury Stamm Construction Company, with Stamm as vice president and later president. When he retired in 1999, he had worked his way from the most junior position to senior leadership. He combined his engineering and construction backgrounds with innovative business skills to transform an already successful company into a major regional leader in commercial building.
For more than six decades, Stamm has given his time and energy to improve the quality of life at UNM, in Albuquerque and New Mexico. He has received a Regents’ Medal and played an instrumental role in the success of Senate Bill 14, which netted several million dollars for UNM. He served on the UNM Foundation board and chaired UNM’s first capital campaign, and more recently was instrumental in raising funds for the new Centennial Engineering Center and George Pearl Hall. He served on the boards of numerous charitable organizations and chaired New Mexico’s Commission on Higher Education.
Tim McElvain, Jr., Honorary Doctor of Science
Tim McElvain, Jr. received a bachelor’s degree in geology from the University of Arizona in 1961. From 1962-2003, he was the CEO and chairman of the board of the McElvain Oil and Gas Properties, recently recognized as one of the world’s 5,000 fastest growing companies.
McElvain is credited with discovering the Santa Fe impact structure in 2004 through his recognition of shatter cones – conical fractures in rock – in exposures of Precambrian rocks along N.M. 475, northeast of Santa Fe. He has contributed to the research effort on this impact crater through collaborations with the UNM Institute of Meteoritics and others.
His other contributions to New Mexico and the Southwest include serving on the board of the School of Advanced Research in Santa Fe and creating the Catherine McElvain Library. He has provided academic and financial support to undergraduate and graduate students at several Southwest universities, including UNM.
Jay Wright, Honorary Doctor of Letters
Poet, playwright and essayist Jay Wright studied comparative literature at the University of California, Berkeley and Rutgers University after playing professional baseball and serving in the U.S. Army.
Wright is the author of 13 volumes of poetry and more than 30 plays. Much of his work addresses confluences and connections unique to the American Southwest. His literary work is enriched by his African American and Native American heritage, fluency in Spanish and love of Mexico and Central America. It insistently explores an interest in individuality which is at the same time an interest in common humanity.
Prominent literary critic Harold Bloom calls Wright “one of the five or six living American poets whose work will survive.” Among the many honors Wright has received is the MacArthur Genius Fellowship and the 2005 Bollingen Prize for American Poetry.
Robert Abbott, Tom L. Popejoy Dissertation Prize
Robert Abbott’s “Automated Tactics Modeling: Techniques and Application” is an ambitious effort to marry computational machine learning techniques with human expertise. Using the example of simulated soccer players, the dissertation develops a set of computer behavior models that allow real-world tactics – the human expertise – to be automatically transferred to software agents which use machine learning to improve their performance. The research is intended to make interactive computer simulation more efficient and effective for training students.