FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — A record number of graduates – more than 4,200 – are expected to attend and “walk” during Spring 2016 Commencement ceremonies at the University of Arkansas.

The first ceremony will be held on Friday, May 13, for students in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, which has the largest number of graduates.

Six ceremonies will be held on Saturday, May 14.

The School of Law commencement is traditionally held one week after the other ceremonies, and will be on Saturday, May 21.

“Two years ago we realized that we simply had too many graduating students to try to hold seven ceremonies on the same day,” said Dave Dawson, the U of A registrar. “There was not enough time for one group of students and families to leave their ceremonies while another group was trying to get to theirs. It created too much traffic, getting in and out of parking lots was a problem – it was inconvenient and rushed for everyone. We decided to move our biggest ceremony to Friday to create a more enjoyable, less rushed experience for our students and families.”    

COMMENCEMENT SCHEDULE AND SPEAKERS

Friday, May 13

• J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, 3 p.m. in Bud Walton Arena. An estimated 1,072 graduates are expected to attend.  

Hilary Zedlitz

Speaker: Hilary Zedlitz, Outstanding Senior, an honors political science and Middle East studies dual major, with minors in Arabic and economics. Zedlitz is a graduate of Rogers Heritage High School, a Sturgis Fellow and earned the Arkansas Governor’s Distinguished Scholarship. She has studied abroad with U of A programs in Belize and India, received a Presidential Fellow from the Center for the Study of the Presidency & Congress and was a Harry S. Truman Scholarship finalist. She has been actively involved in volunteer work throughout her college career.  

Saturday May 14

• All- University Commencement, 8:30 a.m. in Bud Walton Arena. An estimated 873 graduate students are registered to attend.

Richard Davies

Speaker: Richard Davies, the recently retired executive director of the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism. Davies is a U of A alumnus and served for nearly 43 years with Parks and Tourism. He worked as state parks director for 14 years and as executive director for 25, serving on the cabinet of five Arkansas governors. He was instrumental in passing the “1/8th Cent Conservation Amendment” to the Arkansas Constitution in 1996, which created protected funding for conservation agencies in the state. 

• College of Engineering, noon in Barnhill Arena. At this time 424 students are registered to attend.

Charles D. Morgan

Speaker: Charles D. Morgan, CEO of First Orion Corp., a private company that developed and markets PrivacyStar, an application that helps protect mobile phone users’ privacy. Morgan holds a mechanical engineering degree from the University of Arkansas, worked as a systems engineer at IBM for six years before joining Acxiom Corp., where he served as CEO from 1972 to 2008. Under his leadership the company grew to be an international corporation generating $1.4 billion in annual revenue.

• Sam M. Walton College of Business, 1 p.m. Bud Walton Arena. An estimated 736 students are expected to attend.

Shelley Simpson

Speaker: Shelley Simpson, chief marketing officer for J.B. Hunt Transport Services Inc. Simpson began her career at J.B. Hunt after graduating in 1994 from Walton College with a degree in marketing. She has held various positions in the company during her career. She was appointed as the company’s chief marketing officer in 2011 and she took on the additional role of president of J.B. Hunt’s truck division in 2014. This year she was named a Distinguished Woman in Logistics by the Women in Trucking organization.

• Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design, 1 p.m. Faulkner Performing Arts Center. At this time 71 students have registered to attend.

Cynthia Weese

Speaker: Cynthia Weese, an architect and founding principal of Weese Langley Weese in Chicago. From 1995-2006 she served as professor and dean of the School of Architecture at Washington University in St. Louis. She was the first woman to be dean of a school in that institution.

 

 

• Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences, 3:30 p.m. Barnhill Arena. An estimated 308 students are expected to attend.

Maj. Gen. William Bowden

Speakers: Distinguished Alumni Maj. Gen. William Bowden, USAF (ret.) and Kerri Boling, a litigation and regulatory attorney for Tyson Foods Inc.

Bowden graduated from the U of A in 1954 and served 35 years in the U.S. Air Force. He led operations on 12 Air Force bases, including the Pentagon, and served as a navigator and bombardier on B-52 bombers during the Vietnam War.

Boling graduated from Bumpers College in 2007 with a bachelor’s degree in agricultural business and has been a litigation and regulatory attorney for Tyson Foods Inc. since 2012, focusing on food and agricultural related matters.

• College of Education and Health Professions, 5 p.m. Bud Walton Arena. An estimated 607 students are expected to attend.

Jeff Long

Speaker: Jeff Long, U of A vice chancellor and director of athletics. Long has led the U of A Department of Intercollegiate Athletics for eight years, achieving both athletic and academic success. Arkansas has captured two national championships, 27 conference championships, advanced to 115 post-season competitions, and, for the first time, had back-to-back football bowl victories. Razorback student-athletes also set a program-record GPA of 3.25 in the fall 2015 semester, while 200 current or former Razorback student-athletes graduated in the past two academic years, marking an annual increase of nearly 70 percent from just seven years ago. Long served as the inaugural chairman of the College Football Playoff Selection committee for both the 2014 and 2015 seasons, and will continue to serve as a member of the selection committee through the 2017 season.

Saturday, May 21

• School of Law, 2 p.m. Fayetteville Town Center. At this time 104 students have registered to attend.

Eddie H. Walker Jr.

Speaker: Eddie H. Walker Jr., attorney. Walker was born in Gethsemane, Arkansas, in 1950. He earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a law degree from the U of A. He is a partner with Walker, Shock and Harp PLLC, in Fort Smith where he focuses on workers' compensation, social security disability and personal injury law. He served as a Special Associate Justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court on several occasions and as a Special Commissioner for the Arkansas Workers’ Compensation Commission. He is a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and the College of Workers’ Compensation Lawyers. In 2015, Walker was sworn in as the first African-American president of the Arkansas Bar Association.

About the University of Arkansas: The University of Arkansas provides an internationally competitive education for undergraduate and graduate students in more than 200 academic programs. The university contributes new knowledge, economic development, basic and applied research, and creative activity while also providing service to academic and professional disciplines. The Carnegie Foundation classifies the University of Arkansas among only 2 percent of universities in America that have the highest level of research activity. U.S. News & World Report ranks the University of Arkansas among its top American public research universities. Founded in 1871, the University of Arkansas comprises 10 colleges and schools and maintains a low student-to-faculty ratio that promotes personal attention and close mentoring.