Prominent Anthropologist to Speak at Liberal Arts Commencement
More than 1,200 students in the College of the Liberal Arts at Penn State are expected to receive associate and bachelor's degrees at the commencement ceremony to be held on Saturday, May 16, at 6 p.m., in the Bryce Jordan Center, at the University Park campus. Dr. Nina Jablonski, renowned anthropologist and professor and head of the Department of Anthropology in the College, will be the commencement speaker.
Professor Jablonski conducts research on primate and human evolution, especially on adaptations to changing environments through time. Her 2006 book, Skin: A Natural History, has been featured in National Geographic, Scientific American, and other popular media including The Colbert Report show. It also was recognized with the W.W. Howells Award of the American Anthropological Association for best book in biological anthropology for 2007.
Approximately 75 graduate students in the College will receive master's or Ph.D. degrees at The Graduate School ceremony on Saturday, May 17, at 5:00 p.m., also in the Bryce Jordan Center. The speaker will be Bruce A. McPheron, Dean of the College of Agricultural Sciences at Penn State.
To celebrate the College of the Liberal Art Centennial this year, alumnus R. Stewart Brunhouse, a 1967 graduate in General Arts and Sciences, will serve as the Centennial Marshal, representing the College's 90,000 alumni.
Mr. Brunhouse, an active volunteer with the College of the Liberal Arts, is current president and CEO of A&A Company Inc., in South Plainfield, N.J. The company produces metal, ceramic and hard-faced coatings of various industries including electronics, printing, pumping, utilities, aerospace, and the military.
He served on the alumni society board of directors from 1996 to 2008 and as its president from 2004 to 2006. He is an emeritus member of the College's Development Council and received the Outstanding Liberal Arts Alumni Award in 2008.
The student selected to represent all Liberal Arts undergraduate students as the College Student Marshal is Amanda R. Kreider, who will receive a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics with a second major in French. Ms. Reider chose Dr. David Shapiro, Professor of Economics, Demography and Women's Studies, to serve as her Faculty Marshal.
The daughter of Randy and Paulette Kreider of Media, Pa., Kreider is a Schreyer Honors College scholar and has earned numerous awards. She has served as a research assistant for an economics faculty member and has co-authored an academic paper that was presented at an annual professional conference earlier this month. She has studied abroad in France and participated in a Bates White Research Experience for undergraduates.
Kreider also has found the time to raise funds for the IFC Dance Marathon and to sing in both the Savoir Faire a capella group and the Penn State University Choir. Future plans include pursuing a doctorate in economics.
In regards to the College's Centennial, the liberal arts always had been part of the Penn State education since its founding in 1855. But the School of the Liberal Arts wasn’t created until 1909 when art and mathematics merged with the School of Language and Literature, and the School of History and Political Science. Penn State’s first modern president Edwin E. Sparks, a historian, assumed the deanship of the College.
There have been many changes and many challenges over the years, but the College has grown to become a nationally prominent liberal arts college with excellent undergraduate and graduate students and top-ranked faculty and departments. Centennial updates are posted on the Web site, http://www.la.psu.edu/cla-alumni/centennial/