Spring quarter commencement set for June 11

Alumni Douglas Dreier (’96, Theatre), Keith Boyd (’95, Political Science) and Bill Kindler (’65, Chemistry) will speak to graduates and their guests at Commencement ceremonies at Western Washington University June 11.

Almost 1,700 undergraduate and 180 master’s students are expected to graduate June 11. Admission is by ticket only, and each graduate will be allowed four tickets. Overflow seating also will be available on campus.

Dreier, who will speak at the 9 a.m. ceremony, is curator of The Dreier Collection, one of the nation’s largest private collections of American popular culture. Based in Santa Barbara, the collection is often called “The Smithsonian of the West” and includes items from film, television, sports and literature. Dreier was a teacher in Baltimore and Albuquerque before becoming curator of the collection and serves on Western’s Theatre Department advisory board.

Boyd, the speaker at the 12:30 p.m. ceremony, is a senior manager at Microsoft, where he leads a team that creates documentation for programmers who are writing software applications to work with the next version of the Windows operating system. At Western, he served as a student lobbyist in Olympia, as president of the Associated Students of WWU and as program director of KUGS radio as the student-run station became only the second in the world to transmit its signal on the Internet. Boyd is now president-elect of the Western Alumni Association.

Kindler, who will address graduates and their guests at the 4 p.m. ceremony, enjoyed a 30-year career as a scientist, manager and executive in the paper products industry, working at the Crown Zellerbach and James River corporations and at Rayonier, Inc. Kindler is now retired and living on the Olympic Peninsula where he serves on the board of directors for the Olympic Park Institute, which provides environmental education to thousands of school children each year. Kindler, an avid hiker, fisher and builder of wooden boats, also serves on the WWU College of Sciences and Technology Leadership Board.

The 9 a.m. ceremony will include candidates from the College of Business and Economics, the College of Fine and Performing Arts, Fairhaven College of Interdisciplinary Studies and Huxley College of the Environment. At 12:30 p.m., candidates from the College of Humanities and Social Sciences (Humanities Division) will graduate along with those from Woodring College of Education. At 4 p.m. will be the ceremony for the College of Humanities and Social Sciences (Social Sciences Division) and the College of Sciences and Technology.

For those without tickets, the ceremonies will be broadcast in the Science, Mathematics and Technology Education (SMATE) building on large viewing screens. Off campus, the ceremony will be broadcast live on Whatcom County’s Comcast cable service channel 26 and will be streamed live at www.wwu.edu/registrar/commencement_ceremony_streaming.shtml.

In addition to the keynote speaker, a WWU student will speak at each commencement ceremony. Deanna Wilson, a graduate of Shorecrest High School in Shoreline, will speak at the 9 a.m. ceremony. Wilson double-majored in Music Education and Vocal Performance and was a soprano section leader and soloist in Western’s Concert Choir. In addition to her performances at Western, Wilson served as a musical or choral director for the Bellingham Theatre Guild, the Interfaith Choir Festival and the Neighborhood Playhouse Theatre. The 12:30 p.m. speaker will be Chris Crow, a graduate of Trinidad High School in Trinidad, Colo., and the Outstanding Graduate in the departments of Management and Liberal Studies. At Western, Crow double-majored in International Business and History of Culture and helped launch a student-operated scholarly journal. Already an experienced world traveler, Crow will teach English after graduation on a remote Indonesian island on a Fulbright fellowship. Finally, Analiesse Isherwood, a Behavioral Neurosciences major who graduated from Moses Lake High School and Big Bend Community College, will speak at the 4 p.m. ceremony. Isherwood, a Presidential Scholar from the College of Sciences and Technology, was active at Western in faculty-led research into the link between brain structure and some of the symptoms of schizophrenia. She also traveled to Haiti several times to assist in medical clinics and after graduation is heading to medical school at the University of Washington.

Following WWU tradition, graduates will proceed to the walk in front of Old Main after the completion of each ceremony, where they will pass through a corridor of faculty and deposit their Western identification cards in a box that is later cemented into Memory Walk.

There will be additional commencement-related ceremonies and gatherings during the afternoon. The College of Business and Economics will celebrate graduates in the Old Main Theatre at noon. Fairhaven College will hold an additional ceremony at 1 p.m. in the Performing Arts Center Concert Hall, followed by a reception in the Fairhaven College Lounge. There will also be a celebration for Huxley graduates at 2 p.m. in the PAC Mainstage Theatre, with a reception in the PAC plaza. A reception for Woodring graduates will take place in the Miller Hall Collaborative Space from 2 to 3:30 p.m.

Guest parking is free on Commencement day and available in most lots. Visitors must observe regulations for handicapped and individually reserved spaces. Guests are advised to arrive early to avoid traffic congestion and to allow for travel time between the parking lots and gym. Shuttle bus service will be available from the 12A parking lot off Bill McDonald Parkway near Fairhaven College, but the buses cannot accommodate wheelchairs. The shuttle service begins at 7:30 a.m. and ends at 6:30 p.m. or until there is no demand. Guests in wheelchairs may park in designated lots behind Miller Hall and Arntzen Hall. 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.