Commencement Letter
1 June 2000
I write to you on Commencement day, the most joyous moment of the academic year, where we mark individual and collective achievement, new beginnings, and hope for the future. We honor our students who have worked long and hard to arrive at graduation; our faculty, whose teaching and learning have brought the graduating classes to the conclusion of their studies; and public figures whose achievement reflects on the College.
This year's Commencement is full of firsts: our first in the new century and the new millennium, and the first for me as president.
The following will give you a sense of the occasion.
Number of Graduates
The College graduated approximately 1,600 undergraduate students and 1,000 graduate students.
Student Honors
Marcia Lillian DeVoe, a classics major who will graduate in 2001, received a Beinecke Brothers Memorial Scholarship, a national award granted to college juniors of exceptional academic promise who plan to attend graduate school in the arts, humanities, or social sciences. One of only twenty-one Beinecke Scholars in the country, she is the only student from a public urban college to receive the award this year. She is the second Brooklyn College student to be so honored in the last seven years.
David Kovacs, who graduated with a master of fine arts in creative writing, has won a Fulbright grant to teach English in Hungary.
Matthew Louis Rotando, who received a master of fine arts in creative writing, has been awarded a Fulbright grant and will pursue his work in creative writing in Sri Lanka.
Some forty students were inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. Others qualified for Sigma Gamma Epsilon, the national honor society forthe earth sciences, for Upsilon Pi Epsilon, the national honor society for the computing sciences, and for the Golden Key National Honor Society.
In all, more than 250 of our graduating students received stipends in the form of memorial scholarships, class and named scholarships, prizes, and awards--all made possible through the Brooklyn College Foundation by the generosity of alumni and friends.
College Honors
As is our custom, Brooklyn College honors people of distinction with honorary degrees, alumni honors, and a presidential medal. Our choices this year were, with one exception, all alumni.
Honorary Degrees:
Constance Emmer Lieber, '45, a philanthropist andadvocate of mental health research and services, Doctor of Humane Letters.
A.M. Rosenthal, a graduate of City College, who has spent most of his professional life at the New York Times as a journalist, editor, and columnist, Doctor of Humane Letters.
Alumni Honors:
Harriet Brathwaite, '59, a health practitioner and advocate of the professional rights of nurses, with particular focus on the health care needs of the minority community.
William E. Hellerstein, '59, a champion of the legal rights of prisoners and defendants, who teaches at Brooklyn Law School.
Francine Lifton Klagsbrun, '52, writer and editor on social issues, Jewish culture, and family life.
Presidential Medal:
Deborah T. Poritz, '58, chief justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court, who has had a distinguished career in public service as an attorney and jurist.
Presidential Installation
Benno C. Schmidt, vice chair of the CUNY Board of Trustees, with Chancellor Matthew Goldstein in attendance, formally installed the new president.
Special Guests
Our guests at Commencement included trustees of the University and of the Brooklyn College Foundation. Also present were members of the State Legislature and the City Council.
We welcomed some 65 members of the class of 1950, our Golden Anniversary class, and many professors emeriti.
This year's Commencement exercises, attended by more than 7,000 on campus, was broadcast on the World Wide Web, so that families of students as far away as Latin America and the Caribbean, and as close as Flatbush, could participate.
Please join me in extending warmest congratulations to our graduates and their families, and to each of our award recipients.
I am enormously honored by the distinction bestowed upon me as your new president and I greatly look forward to celebrating your achievements in the years to come.
Sincerely,
Christoph M. Kimmich
