NEWS Release

 UNCG AWARDS DIPLOMAS AT MID-YEAR
 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES DEC. 21

GREENSBORO – More than 1,200 graduates of The University of North Carolina at Greensboro accepted diplomas during mid-year graduation ceremonies at the Greensboro Coliseum Dec. 21, but were urged by commencement speaker Dr. Stephen Ruzicka to, "refuse to graduate."

The associate professor of ancient history suggested the new graduates instead follow in the footsteps of truth seekers from the middle-ages to the present by never abandoning the quest for wisdom.

Ruzicka, recipient of the 1999 Alumni Teaching Excellence Award, spoke about the traditional and transitional aspects of higher education through the ages. Accept your diplomas, he told the graduates, "But refuse to feel a sense of completion, of having passed, and having left your academic enterprise behind you," he said. "Students and faculty come and go, but if we keep these robes on, at least figuratively, our present will be both the past and the future. We can see that the university enterprise is in reality the universal enterprise."

Approximately 800 undergraduate degrees and 430 graduate degrees, including 45 Ph.D. degrees, were awarded to students who had completed requirements during summer or fall semester. They were part of the 109th graduating class of the university since it was first chartered in 1891.

Speaking on behalf of the December 2000 graduating class was Richard Tremmel, a recipient of a master's degree in music education. Tremmel, who plans to pursue a Ph.D. from UNCG this spring, taught band at a Wilmington High School for five years before deciding to return to academia to pursue a graduate degree. He delivered a message similar to Ruzicka's.
"Learning is a lifelong process; it doesn't always require a desk and classroom," he said. "It doesn't stop because you're out of school."

Chancellor Patricia Sullivan, made welcoming remarks. Other participants were: Dr. Daniel Winkler, chair of the Faculty Senate; Rosalind Fuse-Hall, secretary of the UNC System; Dr. Sarah L. Cowan, president of the UNCG Alumni Association; Betty C. Ervin, chair of the UNCG Board of Trustees; Dr. A. Edward Uprichard, provost, and Dr. Maureen Grasso, interim dean of the Graduate School. Marshall Benbow of the Intervarsity Christian Fellowship delivered the invocation and benediction.

 Also participating were academic deans from each of UNCG's six academic units: Dr. Lynne Pearcey of the School off Nursing ; Dr. Arthur Tollefson of the School of Music; Dr. Laura Sims of the School of Human Environmental Sciences; Dr. David Armstrong of the School of Education;  Dr. James Weeks of the Bryan School of Business and Economics and Dr. Walter Beale of the College of Arts and Sciences.

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