Cathy Lawhon, UC Irvine
President Barack Obama will speak to UC Irvine’s class of 2014 in a commencement ceremony set for Saturday, June 14, in Angel Stadium of Anaheim, the White House confirmed today.
The historic appearance honors the accomplishments of the more than 8,000 undergraduate, graduate, and professional school students of the graduating class of 2014 and kicks off the campus’s 50th anniversary celebration. In June 1964 President Lyndon B. Johnson landed in a barren pasture to dedicate the land that would become UC Irvine. Johnson had only recently unveiled his Great Society agenda; groundbreaking civil rights legislation was passed by the Senate just a day earlier.
“I have come to California to ask you to throw off your doubts about America,” Johnson said from the podium that day. “Help us demonstrate to the world that people of compassion and commitment can free their fellow citizens from the bonds of injustice, the prisons of poverty and the chains of ignorance.”
Completing a historic circle, President Obama will speak to a diverse class in which nearly 50 percent are first-generation university graduates.
“We are thrilled that the president has accepted our invitation to deliver the keynote address at our commencement exercises this June,” said Chancellor Michael V. Drake. “We will be commemorating the 50th anniversary of the groundbreaking and dedication ceremonies of our campus. We are proud of the progress we have made during our first half century, and are looking forward to even greater achievements in the years to come.”
UC Irvine extended the initial invitation to the president in an April 2013 letter from Chancellor Drake that outlined the accomplishments of the relatively young campus. That effort was followed this year by students and staff who solicited signatures on approximately 10,000 postcards from Anteaters of all stripes — students, faculty, staff and alumni. In March, a delegation delivered the postcards and a student-produced video invitation to the White House Office of Public Engagement.
