At 9:30 a.m. on May 15, former Dallas Mayor and current United States Trade Representative Ron Kirk will address nearly 2,000 SMU students as they prepare to receive their bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees. SMU’s 95th Commencement Ceremony will take place in Moody Coliseum and will honor three non-SMU students for their outstanding work.
Three honorary doctorates will be awarded to poet Jorie Graham, physicist Saul Perlmutter and human rights lawyer Karinna Akopovna Moskalenko.
Graham, author of “Hybrids of Plants and of Ghosts,” has been writing innovative poetry for more than 30 years. Graham has excelled professionally both as a writer and a professor, becoming the first woman to be awarded the position of Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory at Harvard University. Multiple awards, including a Pulitzer Prize and a MacArthur Award, have recognized her proven ability. SMU will confer upon this outstanding literary figure the degree of Doctor of Humane Letters.
Dr. Perlmutter is the head of the Supernova Cosmology Project at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a physics professor at the University of California at Berkeley. Through the study of stars, his international team has disproved the fundamental idea that gravity causes expansion of the universe to slow. Their findings have furthered basic knowledge about the universe and discovered strong indications the universe is mostly comprised of dark energy, a substance that still puzzles scientists.
Perlmutter will receive the degree of Doctor of Science from SMU for his substantial contributions to the field of science.
Moskalenko has garnered global admiration for her defense of human rights and advocacy in Russia. As the country’s leading human rights lawyer, Moskalenko created the International Protection Centre, which works to represent clients seeking social justice in front of the European Court of Human Rights. Her staunch support of human rights has resulted in more than 90 successful cases and numerous awards. SMU will honor Moskalenko’s dedication by awarding her with the degree of Doctor of Laws.
“An important part of the Commencement tradition is the conferring of honorary degrees upon distinguished individuals who have made extraordinary contributions in their fields,”
SMU President R. Gerald Turner said. “This year’s honorees represent outstanding achievements in three highly diverse fields. They will provide our graduates with a sense of the broad possibilities for their own futures as they apply the education they have received here in the years ahead.”
