Numerous older faces will be in the throng of young graduates today, who will be presented with diplomas as well -- these are the students of the Tuck School of Business Administration, Thayer Engineering and Dartmouth Medical School.
The small number of graduate students of the engineering, business and medical schools on campus are usually not very visible among the overwhelmingly larger undergraduate population at the College. However on Sunday's graduation, these students will be joining the masses in the celebration of their commencement.
Each of the three graduate schools had their own modified adaptation of the Class Day yesterday, prior to the larger Commencement ceremony today. Referred to as "Class Day" by the DMS and "Investiture" by the Tuck and Thayer schools, these ceremonies are more personal to the respective graduate schools. Awards and honors were presented, students were hooded and capped according to their level of degree.
"More students usually tend to attend the investiture than the actual Commencement because the investitures are a little bit more intimate," said Daryl Laware, the registrar of Thayer Engineering.
Thayer Engineering offers the largest number of degrees, which include the Bachelor of Engineering; the Master of Engineering Management, the Master of Science and Engineering Sciences and the Doctor of Philosophy and Engineering Sciences.
During Investiture, the BE and the Masters students were hooded and the Doctors capped.The keynote speaker for the ceremony was Brent R. Frei '88 and Thayer alum '89, who is currently the President and CEO of Onix Software Corporation.
The school expected an estimate of 85 total students graduating this year.
One of these 85 students will be Michelle Ott, who will be receiving her MEM degree at commencement. She will be entering a two year management training program at Ford Motor Company in Dearborn, Michigan beginning this August.
"It's great because the job is really well tailored to what I've been trained in engineering and management. Six of us will be taking the same job," Ott said.
The Dartmouth Medical School celebrated its Class Day with the keynote speaker, novelist and screenwriter John Winslow Irving. Irving was chosen as the speaker by the Class Day committee this year as an exceptional individual whose experience and knowledge appealed to the vastly different members of the selection committee that span several generations and represent various interests within the scientific community.
Several member of the committee were intrigued by Irving when he came to speak at Dartmouth in 1998 about his experiences of growing up with his physician grandfather in Boston at the beginning of the 20th century. His personal connection and his research in the history of medicine, in conjunction with his notable speaking talent garnered the notice of this year's Class Day committee.
The Class Day ceremony also featured two student speakers, M. Adrian Rossi (MD) and Jonathan Cruz (PhD). James Feeney and Travis Matheney, DMS '00 piped at the DMS Class Day and will be doing so today as well at Commencement.
At the commencement, the two will be joined by Joshua Marks, Dartmouth College '96, who has traditionally piped at this event.
Tuck celebrated its 100th Graduation Ceremony Anniversary this year. In order to Commemorate, centennial speakers have been invited monthly since January. These speakers, including Paul Argenti and Phil Anderson, are Dartmouth Professors teaching at Tuck.
As another mode of commemoration, a book on the history of Tuck was published this year, "Tuck and Tucker," written by Wayne Braille.
The keynote speaker this year will be Robert Rubin, the former Cabinet member, Treasury Secretary.
An approximate number of 189 students are expected to graduate this year, earning their Master of Business Administration.
