Commencement Speakers
White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel is the keynote speaker and will receive an honorary Doctor of Public Service degree.
Known as an aggressive politician, Emanuel reportedly once sent a dead fish to a pollster he disagreed with. Emanuel cut off his finger while working at Arby’s and infected it while swimming in Lake Michigan. His finger was then amputated – a move that “rendered him practically mute,” President Barack Obama has joked.
Jeanne Narum is the director of Project Kaleidoscope, a national alliance of universities dedicated to advancing undergraduate science, technology, mathematics and engineering. Narum will receive an honorary Doctor of Science degree.
John Safer, who graduated from the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences in 1947, is a sculptor who will receive an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree at Commencement. One of his sculptures is displayed in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.
School Graduation Ceremonies
The School of Business graduation for undergraduates will have former Securities and Exchange Commissioner Cynthia Glassman as the speaker. George W. Bush appointed Glassman in 2002. She served as the acting chairman through summer of 2005.
Mary Cheh is the local councilwoman in D.C.’s Ward 3. She will speak to graduates of the College of Professional Studies. She is a tenured professor at GW and the chair of GW Law Public Interest Committee, which provides pro bono legal services for underprivileged citizens.
Former U.S. Solicitor General Gregory Garre will speak to the Law School. He received a law degree from GW in 1991. He is an adjunct professor who teaches courses about the Supreme Court and constitutional law.
The School of Business ceremony for graduates will hear from Stefan Jacoby, the president and chief executive officer of Volkswagen Group of America.
Kurt Volker was recently appointed the U.S. ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and will speak at the Elliott School for International Affairs ceremony. The GW alumnus has more than 20 years of U.S. Foreign Service experience working on European political and security issues. He speaks Hungarian, Swedish and French and graduated with a master’s degree from the Elliott School of International Affairs in 1987.
Bill Westenhofer has won an Academy Award as a visual effects artist for the film “The Golden Compass” and will be speaking to the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences He was also nominated for an Oscar for his work on “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.” Westenhofer also worked on “Men in Black II” and “Elf.” He graduated with a master’s degree from SEAS in 1995.
William Devries is a renowned surgeon who was the first to perform a successful permanent artificial heart implantation. He will be speaking to the School of Medicine an Health Sciences, where he is a part-time professor. Devries served in the United States Army Reserve as a lieutenant colonel.
Roslyn Brock, vice chairman of the National Board of Directors for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, will be speaking to the School of Public Health and Health Services. She was the first woman and the youngest chairman ever elected to the position, which she has held since 2001.
Cosmin Florescu, an Elliott School of International Affairs graduate student, will be speaking to the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences. He fled from communist Romania to Southern California as a child. After running a development program in Ethiopia, Florescu aspires to join Doctors Without Borders. Florescu will graduate with a master’s degree in global and international development.
Naomi Rapp, an undergraduate SEAS student, will be speaking to the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences. She founded Alpha Omega Epsilon, a female engineering sorority and is one of two student speakers.
