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06-07-06

Media Release

OSU to Graduate What May be its Largest Class in History

CORVALLIS – Oregon State University will graduate what may be the largest class in its history on Sunday, June 18, when it holds its 137th annual commencement. The ceremony, which will be broadcast live over Oregon Public Broadcasting, begins at 2 p.m. in Reser Stadium.

Warren Washington, an OSU alumnus and outgoing chairman of the prestigious National Science Board, will give the commencement address.

About 4,300 students will graduate from OSU in 2006 with some 4,440 degrees. Both would be records, according to Barbara Balz, the university's registrar. Oregon State has attracted record enrollments over the past several years, leading to larger and larger graduating classes.

Last year, OSU graduated 4,083 students who received 4,219 degrees.

OSU President Ed Ray and the academic deans will pass out diplomas to graduating students. Oregon State is one of the few universities of its size to present actual diplomas to its graduates during commencement.

In addition to the degrees, OSU will give honorary doctorate degrees to Washington and rural economics pioneer Emery Castle, and its Distinguished Service Award to business entrepreneur and philanthropist Bernie Newcomb.

Washington is one of Oregon State's most distinguished African American alumni. Hailed as one of the nation's leading climate change experts, he was appointed to the National Science Board first by President Clinton and then by President Bush. He also chairs the U.S. Subcommittee on Global Change. He earned a bachelor's degree in physics and a master's degree in meteorology from OSU.

Castle is a pioneer in the study and advocacy for natural resource-based economics and rural economics. His work as an OSU faculty member opened up new avenues of study that helped farmers, resource managers and decision-makers to consider such things as the value of water quality and technological innovation. After 39 years on the OSU faculty, he retired in 1993, and remains active today.

Newcomb, a 1965 graduate of OSU's College of Business, is co-founder of E*Trade – a company that helped to revolutionize the way that investors research, buy and sell their stocks. Declared legally blind because of vision impairment at birth, he attended the Oregon School for the Blind for two years before enrolling in public schools in Scio, eventually graduating as valedictorian from Scio High in 1961. After his retirement from E*Trade, he contributed $6.1 million to support to OSU College of Business.

OSU's 4,000-plus 2006 degree recipients are hopeful they will embark on equally successful career paths. This year’s graduating class includes many students who are already showing they have the drive to succeed.

Rick Presley is a 27-year-old master’s degree student who grew up helping his parents raise cattle, pigs and a few chickens on a small farm between the rural Oregon towns of Sweet Home and Lebanon. He also was the lead researcher on a team of research faculty and students that developed the world’s first completely transparent integrated circuit.

Presley, who worked 18-hour days each summer on a grass seed farm to pay his tuition as an undergraduate at OSU, was the first author on a research article announcing the electronics breakthrough in the journal, Solid State Electronics. He will receive a master's degree in electrical engineering.

Nancy Lee is a senior from Beaverton who excelled in OSU's University Honors College. On her path to graduating with a degree in biochemistry and biophysics, she spent two years in a Howard Hughes Medical Institute program for undergraduate research, and then spent last summer in an internship at the University of Texas-Southwestern in Dallas.

With a strong interest in blood-related diseases, including hemophilia, Lee is applying to medical schools this summer.

Erin Murphy will walk across the Reser Stadium stage accompanied by her 8-year-old son to pick up her degrees in liberal studies and education. She grew up outside of Portland in rural areas, sometimes living in tents or plywood shacks, and dropped out of high school at the age of 15. By the time she was 20, she was single and pregnant. But after working a series of waitress jobs to pay for her education, she enrolled at Linn-Benton Community College and got a taste of academic success, then transferred to OSU, where she was accepted into the McNair Scholars Program.

Not only did she successfully balance academics with parenthood, Murphy became a mentor to two teenage mothers through the Benton County Parent Enhancement Program. After she graduates, she hopes to pursue a master's degree in teaching or counseling.

Earlier this spring, OSU graduated 38 new doctors of veterinary medicine in a separate ceremony. Many of those graduates will develop careers in private practice, while others will pursue opportunities in public health, national disease control programs, and biomedical research on human health problems.

Seventy-six students will receive their doctor of pharmacy degrees from two institutions. The doctorate is a joint degree awarded by OSU and Oregon Health and Science University, where students spend their third year of study. The pharmacy graduates will be honored during a private hooding and awards ceremony on Saturday, June 17, at 1 p.m. in OSU’s La Sells Stewart Center.

About Oregon State University: OSU is one of only two U.S. universities designated a land grant, sea grant, space grant and sun grant institution. OSU is also Oregon’s largest public research university, garnering more than 60 percent of the total federal and private research funding in the Oregon University System. Its more than 19,000 students come from all 50 states and more than 80 countries.