FAU Celebrates Spring 2019 Commencement
(Photo by Alex Dolce)
Florida Atlantic University will confer more than 3,200 degrees today and tomorrow during six commencement ceremonies in the Carole and Barry Kaye Performing Arts Auditorium, 777 Glades Road, Boca Raton campus. The new graduates will join more than 169,000 alumni who have graduated from FAU since the University opened its doors in 1964.
“A sincere congratulations to the class of 2019,” said FAU President John Kelly. “I applaud the outstanding accomplishments of our graduates and I know they will make us proud as FAU alumni.”
Arthur C. Brooks, Ph.D., ’94, president of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), spoke on Thursday, May 2 at 9 a.m. as the 2019 FAU Hall of Fame inductee. Brooks began his career as a classical musician, leaving college at 19 to perform with the Annapolis Brass Quintet and later, the City Orchestra of Barcelona. After 12 years in music, he returned to school, earning his bachelor’s in economics at Thomas Edison State College and master’s degree in economics at FAU. He later received a MPhil and Ph.D. in public policy analysis at The RAND Graduate School. While in graduate school, he worked as an analyst with the Rand Corporation’s Project Air Force. Brooks then spent 10 years as a university professor, becoming a full professor by his seventh year and occupying the Louis A. Bantle Chair in Business and Government at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. He holds six honorary doctorates. This summer, Brooks will leave AEI to join the faculty of the Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Business School.
Spring commencement also highlights the accomplishments of outstanding graduates, including:
- David Arizabaleta, 24, and Maria Arizabaleta, 23, will both graduate with a bachelor’s degree in environmental engineering on Friday, May 3 at 1 p.m. David and Maria were long lost cousins who discovered each other in the same general physics review session.
- Chelsea Bennice, 33, will graduate with a Ph.D. in integrative biology on Friday, May 3 at 5 p.m. She has spent more than 400 hours underwater studying octopus behavior for her Ph.D. research. While completing her Ph.D. in integrative biology, Chelsea learned how two octopus species utilize different resources to allow coexistence, something that had previously not been studied.
Some interesting statistics regarding the summer graduating class include the fact that 89 of the degree recipients are over the age of 50 and 15 are over the age of 60. The oldest graduate is 70, and the youngest is 18. The graduates represent 47 countries.
For the convenience of family members and friends who cannot attend the commencement ceremonies, the proceedings will be cybercast at www.fau.edu.
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