Speakers set for winter commencement ceremonies
An alumnus and the chancellor of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education are guests speakers at the Winter graduate and undergraduate commencement ceremonies, respectively.
Kim Kaufman, executive director of the Pennsylvania Independent Regulatory Review Commission (IRRC) , will be guest speaker at the graduate ceremony beginning at 7 p.m. in the H. Ric Luhrs Performing Arts Center. Dr. John C. Cavanaugh, chancellor of the Pennsylvania State System, will be guest speaker at the undergraduate commencement ceremony at 11 a.m. Dec. 19 in Heiges Field House. No tickets are needed to attend either program.
For the undergraduate ceremony, guests may enter the field house arena beginning at 9 a.m. Guests unable to climb stairs and sit on bleachers should contact the Office of University Communications and Marketing by e-mail at sunews@ship.edu by Dec. 11 for parking and reserved seating. All guests should be seated by 10:30 a.m. In case of inclement weather, individuals may call Hotline, a recorded messaging system, at 477-1200. Hotline is the official source of information about the ceremony and any changes due to weather.
Kauffman earned his bachelor's degree in Government in 1981 and his master's degree in public administration in 1982. He has served as the commissions executive director since May 2005. He is responsible for directing the daily operation of IRRC, an independent commission that is statutorily responsible for reviewing all regulations proposed by nearly every agency, board and commission in Pennsylvania's government.
Prior to his appointment to the commission, he had a variety of posts inside and outside of state government. He has extensive experience in economic development including the creation or operation of government based lending programs, micro-lending, loan guarantee and industrial revenue bond financing programs. He also has several years of experience in job retraining and the placement of displaced workers.
Cavanaugh became chancellor effective July 1, 2008. From 2002 to 2008, Cavanaugh served as president of the 10,500-student University of West Florida in Pensacola. He served as provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington from 1999 to 2002. He also held various positions at the University of Delaware, including vice provost for academic programs and planning and associate provost for graduate studies.
Cavanaugh began his academic career as an adjunct instructor of psychology at Indiana University at South Bend while completing work on his doctoral degree His first apointment was as an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at Bowling Green State University in 1980. He held various appointments at Bowling Green, including head of the developmental psychology pro¬gram and director of the Institute for Psychological Research and Application. He also was director for behavioral research at the Northwest Ohio Dementia and Memory Center at the Medical College of Ohio at Toledo for five years.
He attended St. Joseph's College in Philadelphia before earning a bachelor's degree in psychology with high honors from the University of Delaware in 1975. He also holds both a master's degree and a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Notre Dame, and served as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Minnesota's Center for Research in Human Learning and the Institute of Child Development. He served as an American Council on Education Fellow in 1994-1995 and is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, a Charter Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science and a Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America.
Further information on the undergraduate ceremony is available by calling 477-1202 or by sending e-mail to sunews@ship.edu.