WWU to Hold Winter Commencement March 23

Supply chain professional Deborah Dull, a Western Washington University alumna, will address WWU graduates and their families at the winter commencement ceremony March 23 at 9:45 a.m. in Carver Gymnasium.

About 675 undergraduate and 60 master’s students are expected to graduate from Western winter quarter. There will be one ceremony for all graduates and each graduate will receive four tickets for guests. Overflow seating will be available on campus.

Dull, the ceremony’s main speaker, is principal of supply chain for GE Digital, where she focuses on industrial supply chains. Specifically, she’s developing software solutions to accelerate a transition to a circular economy – an approach that focuses on reducing waste and reusing items again and again. She has also worked in supply chain management for Microsoft and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Dull has a 2007 bachelor’s degree in business administration – operations management from Western and earned a master’s degree in supply chain and operations management at the University of Liverpool in 2014.

Also speaking at the ceremony will be Manda Baur, who is earning a Bachelor of Arts in linguistics with a minor in creative writing. Baur grew up in the Tri-Cities and graduated from Southridge High School and Columbia Basin College. At Western, Baur has studied linguistic discrimination, particularly oppression through language, and how language affects society. They also volunteered for Jeopardy, Western’s student literary magazine.

Overflow seating for the ceremony will be available adjacent to Carver in Western’s Science Math and Technology Education building, where the ceremony will be shown on large screens. The ceremony will also be streamed live at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/wwu-live-events1.

Following the ceremony, graduates will have the opportunity to follow WWU tradition and deposit their Western identification cards in a box that is later cemented into Memory Walk in front of Old Main.

Doors open at 9 a.m. and all guests should be seated five minutes before the scheduled start. When the ceremony begins, the procession will start and all guest entrances are closed. Doors will reopen when the procession is complete.

Guest parking is free on commencement day and available in most lots. Visitors must observe regulations for handicapped and individually reserved spaces. Visitors are also advised to arrive early to avoid traffic congestion and to allow for travel time between the parking lots and Carver.

Shuttle bus service will be available from the 12A parking lot off South College Drive from 8 a.m. to noon or until there is no demand. One of the shuttle buses will be ADA-equipped and will accommodate two wheelchairs. Guests who use wheelchairs may also park in lot 17G and 11G, which will be reserved for accessible parking.

Parking attendants will be available to assist guests with special parking needs.

For more information or for disability accommodations contact the Registrar’s Office, (360) 650-3701 or email Commencement@wwu.edu.