The 2008 UCSB Graduate Division Commencement Ceremony kicked off on Sunday, June 15, at 4:00 PM on the Faculty Club Green. The commencement exercises began with greetings from Chancellor Yang and were followed by the commencement address. Astronaut Leroy Chiao, Ph.D., UCSB alumnus, entrepreneur, distinguished chair professor, and the first American to vote in a presidential election from space, was the Graduate Division’s keynote commencement speaker. Dr. Chiao left NASA in December, 2005 following a fifteen-year career with the agency. A veteran of four space missions, Dr. Chiao most recently served as Commander and NASA Science Officer of Expedition 10 aboard the International Space Station. Following the presentation of the Louis and Winifred Lancaster Dissertation Award and the student address, the conferring of degrees and hoodings of graduate students took place.
Four Geography graduate students who have completed or will complete their PhDs by fall were hooded by the chairs of their PhD committees at the ceremony: Shaunna Burbidge (hooded by Kostas Goulias), Qingfeng (Gene) Guan (hooded by Keith Clarke, Meredith Marsh (hooded by Reg Golledge), and Andrea Nuernberger (also hooded by Reg Golledge). Meri Marsh, ABD, is finishing her dissertation on “Spatial concepts: What should students know, what do they know, and how can we know what they know?” Andrea Nuernberger (also ABD) is working on “Presenting accessibility to mobility-impaired travelers.” Dr. Shaunna Burbidge’s dissertation was titled “Evaluating the impact of neighborhood trail development on active travel behavior and overall physical activity,” and Dr. Gene Guan’s dissertation was titled “Parallel algorithms for geographic processing.”
Gene will leave in July to take a post-doc with the new CEGIS (Center for Excellence in GIScience) in Rolla, Missouri. Shaunna Burbidge sent the following re her future plans: “After receiving two job offers, I have accepted a position as a visiting assistant professor in the Geography Department at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, with the option of staying on as a tenure-track assistant professor beginning fall 2009. This position comes with graduate student assistance for my courses (I get a TA!!) as well as research assistance and funding from the department and university. I have also accepted a 3 year appointment to serve on the Travel Behavior and Values Committee of the Transportation Research Board of the National Academy of Sciences. I am very excited for this next step in my career and am grateful to everyone at UCSB who helped prepare me for this.”
Congratulations to all four grads – they are a credit to the department and an inspiration to our students! Btw, alumna Sarah Battersby gets the dubious credit for the title of this article. On a more serious level, “hooding” at academic ceremonies goes back to at least the 12th century when most scholars were clerics and wore ecclesiastical garb; indeed, one source suggests that the earliest hoods were simply a means of keeping a tonsured head warm. “The pageantry of commencement has its roots in medieval times, dating to the early tradition of Europe’s first universities. Origins of academic attire are obscured in history, but it is likely that the scholar’s distinctive dress was based on modifications of ecclesiastical costumes of the times. In 1895, the United States set for its universities a uniform academic costume code, which is reflected in most of the regalia worn today. Meanwhile, European universities maintained their right to variety. The vivid diversity of regalia for European degree holders brings to the American commencement such visual pleasures as sable berets, cardinal robes and other distinctive garb. The cap, the hood and the robe are the visual components of the academic costume. The mortarboard, as we see it now, comes from joining the elements of a square bonnet and a skull cap. As early as 1600, scholars at Oxford University began using lightweight boards to hold out the corners of the bonnet” (more here and here. ).
(Photographs of all – except Dr. Chiao – courtesy of Keith Clarke)
