Inside Iowa State: Iowa State University

July 25, 2003

Former U.S. Cabinet member to speak at summer commencement

by Anne Krapfl
Iowa State will award more than 950 degrees during a single summer graduation ceremony Saturday, Aug. 9, in Hilton Coliseum.

Lauro Cavazos, U.S. Secretary of Education for two years during the Ronald Reagan and George Bush administrations (September 1988 to December 1990), and an Iowa State alumnus, will give the commencement address.

An estimated 595 students will receive bachelor's degrees during the ceremony. Another 283 will receive master's and 75 will receive Ph.D. awards. All graduating students will walk across the stage, be greeted by President Gregory Geoffroy and their college dean and have their names announced as they receive their diplomas.

Cavazos, a native Texan, received bachelor's and master's degrees (zoology) at Texas Tech before completing a Ph.D. in physiology from Iowa State in 1954. Currently, he is a professor of family medicine and community health in the Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston. He also was on the Tufts faculty from 1964 to 1980 and from 1991 to 1996, serving as dean of the medical school from 1975 to 1980. From 1980 to 1988, he returned to Texas Tech as the university's president.

Another Iowa State alumnus, Roy Whistler, was to be awarded an honorary doctorate of science degree at the ceremony. Due to health considerations, Whistler received the degree in early June in West Lafayette, Ind., from vice president for academic affairs and provost Benjamin Allen.

Whistler, an internationally recognized chemist specializing in carbohydrates, received a Ph.D. in plant chemistry from Iowa State in 1938. Most of his career was as a faculty member at Purdue University, West Lafayette.

The commencement ceremony begins at 9:30 a.m.