UNH Holds 138th Commencement Saturday, May 24
By Lori Wright, Media Relations
May 21, 2008
The University of New Hampshire celebrates its 138th Commencement Saturday,
May 24, 2008, at Memorial Field.
The procession of approximately 2,400 undergraduate and graduates begins at
9:45 a.m., with the ceremony starting at 10 a.m., rain or shine. Tickets are
not needed to attend commencement.
Michael Brown, CEO and co-founder of the youth service group City Year, is
the keynote speaker and will receive a Doctor of Humane Letters. A graduate
of Harvard University and Harvard Law School, Brown is the recipient of the
Reebok Human Rights Award, the Jefferson Award of the American Institute for
Public Service and the Boston Bar Association's Public Service Award.
In 1988 while a student at Harvard Law School, he and classmate Alan Khazei
launched City Year, an organization that promotes civic involvement among diverse
17-to-24-year-olds who unite for 10-month terms of community service in various
locations around the country and in South Africa.
Corps members meet critical needs in their communities, serving as teachers'
aides, running after-school programs and vacation camps, teaching violence
and AIDS prevention, rehabilitating public housing units, and building parks
and playgrounds. From a 50-person pilot program launched in 1988, City Year
has grown to involve more than 1,000 corps members serving in 11 cities across
the United States.
The Granite State Award will be presented to Joanne Lamprey, president of
Lamprey Brothers, a fuel company servicing the state for more than 80 years.
Lamprey is a board member of First Tee, an organization that teaches children
values through the game of golf. She has also been instrumental in transitioning
the New Hampshire Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals from a small
nonprofit operation to a mature organization by leveraging resources critical
to the organization's ultimate success.
Additionally, Lamprey supports a wide variety of local concerns, such as providing
access to affordable health care, providing shelter for the homeless, encouraging
better citizenship among youth, finding homes for abused and neglected animals,
and advancing energy conservation, among many others.
The Granite State Award honors New Hampshire citizens, agencies, corporations,
and foundations whose achievements and/or extraordinary service in their own
particular spheres have made significant beneficial contributions to the state.
Charles Simic, U.S. poet laureate and UNH professor emeritus, will receive
a Doctor of Letters. As a poet, essayist, and translator, he has published
nearly 30 books of poetry, eight volumes of nonfiction prose, and 13 volumes
of poetry in English translation. He also has edited or co-edited three anthologies: "European
and South American Poetry," "Best American Poetry of 1992," and "New
British Poetry." To date, 38 volumes of his work have been published in
other languages.
Daniel Mariaschin, UNH class of 1971 and executive vice president of B'nai
B'rith International, will receive a Doctor of Humane Letters.
B'nai B'rith is a worldwide service organization that unites people of Jewish
faith and enhances Jewish identity through strengthening family life, the education
and training of youth, broad-based services for the benefit of senior citizens,
and advocacy and action on behalf of Jews throughout the world. Mariaschin
has played an instrumental role at the European conferences on anti-Semitism
in Vienna (2003), Berlin (2004), and Cordoba, Spain (2005), and works unceasingly
with the United Nations to protect the rights of Jewish communities.
Additional information about commencement is available at http://www.unh.edu/commencement/.
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