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Duke To Award More Than 5,100 Diplomas Sunday

Commencement ceremony will be held at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park this year

Part of the Commencement 2015 Series

Duke University will award more than 5,100 undergraduate, graduate and professional degrees during its annual commencement ceremony Sunday, May 10.Duke President Richard H. Brodhead will preside over the 9 a.m. ceremony and global health leader Paul Farmer will deliver the commencement address.The ceremony will be held at Durham Bulls Athletic Park in downtown Durham. The usual commencement venue, Duke’s Wallace Wade Stadium, is under renovation.The event is open to the public and will be streamed live on Duke’s YouTube channel, available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DthEHCMM41c. Twitter users can follow commencement and contribute to the conversation using the hashtag #Duke2015.The student speaker at commencement will be Andrew Kragie, a political science and public policy major from Maryland.Farmer graduated summa cum laude from Duke in 1982 with a bachelor's degree in medical anthropology. The next year he began helping dispossessed farmers in Haiti's Central Plateau while beginning work toward his Ph.D. and medical degree at Harvard University.In 1987, he became a founding director of the international nonprofit organization Partners In Health (PIH), which provides direct health care services, undertakes research and advocates on behalf of people who are sick and living in poverty. Today, PIH has 12 sites throughout Haiti, and works in 12 other countries.The development of Farmer's work in Haiti and elsewhere is chronicled in Tracy Kidder's book, "Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World" (2003, Random House).Six honorary degrees will be awarded during the ceremony. The recipients are: France Cordova, director of the National Science Foundation; Renee Fleming, an opera singer and winner of the National Medal of Arts; Rakesh Jain, a pioneer in the fields of bioengineering and tumor biology; Harold Mooney, a plant ecologist; McCoy Tyner, a jazz pianist; and David Levin and Michael Feinberg, founders of the Knowledge is Power Program, who will share the award.In addition to Sunday’s ceremony, Duke’s graduation weekend May 8-10 is filled with special events held by individual schools, departments and programs.About 13,000 guests are expected to attend the main commencement exercise, according to Duke’s Office of Special Events and University Ceremonies, which oversees graduation weekend planning.Visitor spending in Durham during graduation weekend -- at restaurants, hotels, shops, entertainment venues and other related places -- is expected to total about $6.2 million, said Shelly Green, CEO of the Durham Convention & Visitors Bureau. Estimated tax revenue is expected to be nearly $245,000, she said."Duke's graduation weekend has always been an important event for Durham," Green said. "We are happy to host the thousands of parents, friends and family members who are here to celebrate such a great milestone. But we’d also like to think this event is as great for Durham as it is for the graduates. Graduates and their families enjoy Durham, and Durham benefits through the substantial impact on the community."The bureau's website has a regularly updated "lodging hotline" -- http://www.dcvb-nc.com/LHL/2015_Graduation.pdf -- that allows visitors to see which hotels have available rooms during graduation weekend.While there is ample free parking near the ballpark, buses will be available to transport students, faculty, staff and guests to and from the ceremony.Pick-ups are at the East Campus bus stop and Wannamaker/Towerview traffic circle. These buses will run from approximately 7-9 a.m. before commencement and from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. afterwards. The shuttle from campus drops off at Carr Street near the ballpark.Shuttles will also be available after commencement along Blackwell Street near the ballpark to drop-off sites near the Durham Convention Center, Armory, and 21C Hotel.Anyone planning to ride a shuttle should sign up in advance by completing this online form.More parking information is available at https://commencement.duke.edu/parking-transportation-2015.The Washington Duke Inn and Golf Club has its own shuttle service from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. Reservations are preferred.Speakers at other ceremonies include:-- At 10 a.m. Friday, Linda Q. Everett, former executive vice president and chief nurse executive at Indiana University Health, will address graduates of the School of Nursing’s accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing, Master of Science in Nursing, Post-master’s Certificate, Doctor of Philosophy in Nursing and Doctor of Nursing Practice programs, at the Durham Performing Arts Center. The ceremony is not open to the public.-- At 6 p.m. Friday, Susan Chambers, vice president of Walmart’s global people division, will address graduates of the Fuqua School of Business’s MMS: Foundations of Business Class of 2015, at Cameron Indoor Stadium. It is not open to the public but will be live-streamed on Fuqua’s YouTube channel. -- At 7 p.m. Friday, Nancy Andrews, dean of Duke’s School of Medicine, will address school graduates during a Hippocratic Oath ceremony at Duke Chapel. It is open to the public and will be live-streamed on the Duke Chapel YouTube channel.-- At 9 a.m. Saturday, ESPN analyst and former Duke and NBA player Shane Battier will address graduates of Fuqua’s Executive MBA: Cross Continent and Weekend Executive MBA Classes of 2014 and Global Executive MBA Class of 2015 at Cameron Indoor Stadium. The ceremony is not open to the public but will be broadcast live on Fuqua’s YouTube channel.-- At 9 a.m. Saturday, Beth Stevens, senior vice president for corporate citizenship with The Walt Disney Co., will address graduates of the Nicholas School of the Environment at the Chemistry Lot on Circuit Drive. The ceremony is not open to the public.-- At 1 p.m. Saturday, ESPN analyst Shane Battier will address graduates of Fuqua’s Daytime MBA and Ph.D. classes of 2015, at Cameron Indoor Stadium. The ceremony is not open to the public but will be broadcast live on Fuqua’s YouTube channel.-- At 5:30 p.m. Saturday, Harold Hongju Koh, an expert in international and human rights law who has served as dean of Yale Law School and legal adviser to the U.S. Department of State, will address Duke Law's 2015 graduates at their hooding ceremony. The ceremony is not open to the public.

-- At 5:30 p.m. Saturday, Sylvia A. Earle, renowned oceanographer and explorer, will address Ph.D. graduates at The Graduate School's hooding ceremony at the Durham Convention Center. The ceremony is not open to the public.

-- At 6:30 p.m. Saturday, May 9, Edgardo Colón-Emeric, assistant professor of Christian theology at Duke Divinity School, will deliver the baccalaureate service to Divinity School graduates in Duke Chapel. The 90-minute service is open to the public and will be webcast live on the Duke Chapel YouTube channel. People holding priority seating tickets will be seated beginning at 5:30 p.m., followed by general seating at 6:10 p.m. There will be overflow seating in Rooms 0016 and 0014 of the Divinity School’s Westbrook Building.Degrees to be conferred:Degrees will be awarded to about 1,671 undergraduates and 2,395 graduate and professional students who are graduating this spring. An additional 1,096 students who graduated in September or December 2014 are invited to participate in Sunday's commencement.The estimated degree breakdowns for the May graduates are as follows:Undergraduate degrees:-- Trinity College of Arts & Sciences -- B.A. 707; B.S. 612;-- Pratt School of Engineering -- B.S.E. 288;-- Nursing -- B.S.N. 64;Graduate and Professional degrees:-- Duke Divinity School -- M.Div. 129; Th.M. 5; M.T.S. 21; M.A.C.S. 11; Th.D. 5; D.Min. 3;-- Fuqua School of Business -- MBA 461; M.M.S. – Durham campus 111; M.M.S. – Duke Kunshan campus – 32.-- Graduate School -- M.A. 162; M.S. 141; M.A.T. 1; M.F.A. 13; Ph.D. 191; M.A.G.S. 1;-- School of Law -- J.D. 208; LL.M. 141; S.J.D. 5;-- Nicholas School of the Environment -- M.E.M. 161; M.F. 1;-- Pratt School of Engineering -- M.Eng.M. 60; M.Eng. 18;-- Sanford School of Public Policy -- M.I.D.P. 25; M.P.P. 63;-- School of Medicine -- M.D. 90; M.H.S. 93; M.H.S.-CR 37; D.P.T. 61; M.B.S.T. 18;-- School of Nursing -- M.S.N. 88; D.N.P. 37.For more information on Duke's commencement weekend, visit http://commencement.duke.edu/