Florida Tech To Unveil New Format For Fall Commencement Ceremonies On December 16
By Florida Tech // December 14, 2017
will handout nearly 1,000 degrees
BREVARD COUNTY • MELBOURNE, FLORIDA – Florida Institute of Technology will confer nearly 1,000 degrees on Dec. 16 as the university unveils a new format for its fall commencement ceremonies.
Combining what had been separate ceremonies for undergraduate and graduate students, commencement will now feature all levels of students who will be grouped by college.
At 9:30 a.m., students from the College of Engineering and Computing, College of Science, and College of Aeronautics will cross the stage. An estimated 344 students are scheduled to participate.
At 2 p.m., students from the Nathan Bisk College of Business and the College of Psychology and Liberal Arts will graduate. This ceremony is expected to include 370 students.
Additionally, there are 306 graduates from the university’s online programs, 186 graduates from off-site programs, and 10 dual degree recipients. In total there are 980 candidates for graduation for fall 2017.
Both ceremonies will feature keynote addresses from distinguished Florida Tech alumni.
Huntley Lawrence, ’85 B.S., is the director of aviation at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, where he manages an airport system that includes JFK and LaGuardia international airports and boasts $2.4 billion in revenues and more than 1,500 employees. A winner of Florida Tech’s Outstanding Alumni award at this year’s Homecoming, Lawrence will speak at the morning ceremony.
Elizabeth Lunny will speak at the 2 p.m. ceremony. Also a past winner of the university’s Outstanding Alumni award, Lunny, ’93 B.S., is the vice president of luxury and the publisher of T Magazine at The New York Times.
Previous positions have included associate publisher of Women’s Health, vice president of integrated sales and marketing for Three Lions Entertainment, and various senior positions at Conde Nast, including advertising director of digital and print at Vogue.
President Dwayne McCay will offer opening remarks at both ceremonies, and he will confer two honorary degrees in the morning session. One will go to Marilyn Link, who has been a visionary presence on Florida Tech’s Board of Trustees since 1984, where she currently serves as a Trustee Emerita. Her family’s Link Foundation has awarded grants to Florida Tech, and Link helped make possible the digitalization of the Edwin A. Link Special Collection at the Evans Library, named for her brother. She has also established a charitable gift annuity at Florida Tech.
The other honorary degree will be conferred on Lawrence Mertens, Ph.D., formerly the chief scientist at RCA and a close associate of Jerome Keuper, Florida Tech’s founder. Mertens would later teach several courses at Florida Tech.
In 2015, Mertens and his wife Margarete established an endowed fellowship known as the Lawrence and Margarete Mertens Endowed Fellowship, benefitting graduate students in the College of Engineering and Computing.
For more information and details on the live Web broadcast of both ceremonies, go to www.fit.edu/graduation/
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