California Assembly Speaker Herb Wesson; Paul E. Steiger, managing editor and vice president of The Wall Street Journal; Louis Ignarro, a 1998 Nobel laureate in medicine and a UCLA pharmacologist; Martha Coolidge, president of the Directors Guild of America; and other notables from academia, arts, business and science are among those who will speak before UCLA graduates this year.
An estimated 9,800 bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees will be awarded to UCLA students this year. Thousands will attend 13 separate college and school commencement ceremonies.
More than 2,000 students will attend the College of Letters and Science commencement ceremony on Friday, June 14. The commencement ceremony is the largest at UCLA. For the first time since 1990, the college will hold one official degree-conferring event for all college departments and programs. Graduates also will attend 25 departmental events that will be held the weekend of June 15 and 16.
The UCLA Medal — the university’s highest honor — will be presented to three recipients this year. The medal is presented to people who have made extraordinary contributions to UCLA or whose cultural, humanitarian or political achievements are of such significance to merit the honor.
Actor, director, producer and writer Kirk Douglas will receive the UCLA Medal on Friday, June 14, at the School of Theater, Film and Television’s commencement ceremony. Douglas will be recognized for his extraordinary accomplishments in film and television and his lifelong commitment to philanthropic and humanitarian causes.
Douglas, a first-generation American, received three Oscar nominations early on in his career. In 1955 Douglas and his wife, Anne, formed one of Hollywood’s first independent film companies, the Bryna Company. Douglas made history when he broke Hollywood’s notorious blacklist in 1958. He returned writer Dalton Trumbo’s name to the big screen in the film “Spartacus.� In 1996 Douglas was presented an Honorary Oscar for “50 years as a creative and moral force in the motion picture community.� He also is the recipient of the American Film Institute’s Life Achievement Award and numerous other accolades.
As an international peacemaker, Douglas has traveled around the world to speak about why democracy works and what freedom means. He has visited the war zones of Beirut and Lebanon and more than 20 countries in Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe. In 1981 President Jimmy Carter presented him with the Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award.
The Douglas Foundation has supported such worthy causes as the Los Angeles Mission, which helps the homeless; the Anne and Kirk Douglas Playground Awards; and the Motion Picture Relief Home’s Alzheimer’s Unit.
UCLA Chancellor Albert Carnesale will present Stewart and Lynda Resnick with UCLA Medals on May 31 during the Hippocratic Oath ceremony at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.
Together, the Resnicks lead Roll International Corp., one of California’s most successful holding companies. Consistently ranking among the Forbes list of top-200 privately held firms, Roll International includes Paramount Agribusiness, the Franklin Mint and Teleflora under its corporate umbrella.
The Resnicks are members of the executive board for the Medical Sciences of the School of Medicine and Medical Center. Stewart Resnick has degrees in business administration and law from UCLA, and serves on the advisory board of The Anderson School at UCLA. Lynda Resnick is a trustee and executive vice president of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Through their corporate, foundation and personal philanthropy, the Resnicks have been generous supporters of the university, particularly the UCLA medical enterprise and The UCLA Foundation. They also have made a pledge to support the capital campaign of the UCLA Medical Center’s Westwood Replacement Hospital.
Louis Ignarro, a 1998 Nobel laureate in medicine, will address 146 medical school graduates at the Hippocratic Oath ceremony. He also will speak at the UCLA Ph.D. hooding ceremony on Friday, June 14. Ignarro and two other researchers received the 1998 Nobel Prize in medicine for three major discoveries involving nitric oxide as a unique signaling molecule in the cardiovascular system.
California State Assembly Speaker Herb Wesson will address 191 graduates of the School of Public Policy and Social Research at their commencement ceremony on Saturday, June 15. Wesson, who has served as the speaker since February, represents Los Angeles, Culver City, Westwood and various other communities.
Paul Steiger, managing editor and a vice president of The Wall Street Journal, will speak to 465 graduates at The Anderson School at UCLA commencement ceremony on Friday, June 14. A journalist since 1966, Steiger has won numerous journalism awards and is also a member of the Pulitzer Prize Board.
Martha Coolidge, president of the Directors Guild of America, will address about 250 graduates of the School of Theater, Film and Television on Friday, June 14. She is described as “one of America’s most prominent female directors� and has directed such films as “Rambling Rose.�
Dov Siedman, UCLA alumnus and founder of The Legal Knowledge Company and its chairman and chief executive officer, will speak to graduates of the College of Letters and Science at their commencement ceremony on Friday, June 14. Siedman’s company provides legal services to nearly 200 of the Fortune 500 companies, and its products reach the computers of nearly 3 million people.
Kathleen Dracup, dean and professor of the School of Nursing at the University of California, San Francisco, will speak at the UCLA School of Nursing ceremony on Saturday, June 15.
Maestro and pianist Jon Robertson will deliver the commencement address at the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture ceremony on Saturday, June 15. Robertson, a music professor and chair of the UCLA Department of Music, made his debut as a concert pianist at the age of nine and has performed throughout the United States and Europe. The school will award 376 degrees this year.
Leonard Kleinrock, a UCLA computer science professor who is known as the inventor of Internet technology, will address about 800 graduates of the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science on Saturday, June 15. As a graduate student at MIT, Kleinrock created the basic principles of packet switching, the technology underpinning the Internet. His host computer at UCLA became the first node of the Internet in September 1969.
Lawrence Tabak, director of the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research for the National Institutes of Health, will speak at the School of Dentistry ceremony on Sunday, June 2.
Helene Gayle, director of the HIV/AIDS and TB Program for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, will address graduates of the School of Public Health at their ceremony on Saturday, June 15. Gayle has served as a health consultant to international agencies including the World Health Organization, UNICEF and the World Bank.
UCLA Chancellor Albert Carnesale will give brief introductory speeches at the College of Letters and Science, the School of Public Policy and Social Research, and the Ph.D. hooding ceremonies.
Warren Christopher, secretary of state in President Clinton’s administration, spoke May 12 to the UCLA School of Law graduates.