Honors Ceremony and Commencement 2014

CAS Honors Ceremony

CAS Honors On Friday, May 16th, Dean Antonio Cepeda-Benito welcomed the students, the department chairs and directors, and families to the CAS Honors Ceremony in Ira Allen Chapel. (picture 1). This year's guest speaker was Lynne Bond, Professor Emerita of Psychology (picture 2).

Lynne Bond

Students who successfully defended their honors thesis were presented with certificates of recognition (picture 3), and awards were handed out to students receiving departmental awards. A reception in Billings immediately followed the proceedings. Asian Languages and Literatures Assoc. Professor Kyle Ikeda talks to award recipient Maureen Pavlik and family at the reception. (picture 4)

Professor Kyle Ikeda

A pdf of the program is available here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CAS Commencement

 

Commencement processional Sunday, May 18th, found the sun shining and students being led by Chemistry Professor Willem R. Leenstra, carrying the CAS banner, onto the university green (picture 5) for the afternoon CAS Commencement ceremony. Of the 1,193 members of the Class of 2014, close to 800 students crossed the stage to shake hands with Dean Antonio Cepeda-Benito and receive their diploma covers.

 

Blair Oesterle This year’s winner of the Hannah Howard Award, annually awarded to the student with the highest grade point average in the College of Arts and Sciences, was Blair Oesterle (picture 7). Blair graduated with a major in English and a minor in astronomy. After transferring to UVM in 2012, he took a rigorous slate of courses in addition to completing an Honors thesis— “The Use and Consequence of the Nerd Character in Contemporary Literature"—under the supervision of Professor Emily Bernard. Not surprisingly, he is among the students graduating with honors from the English Department, and indeed, he won the Department’s most prestigious prize for a graduating senior, the Samuel N. Bogorad award. His professors’ description of him is superlative: Professor Jenny Sisk says “He is an astute reader, and if you saw the papers he writes, you'd think he was a Ph.D. student.” She praises his wide-ranging curiosity, saying “I've seen him fired up about subjects as diverse as medieval alchemy and David Foster Wallace!” Congratulations Blair.