Nova Southeastern University 2010 – 2011 Commencement Schedule

FT. LAUDERDALE-DAVIE, Fla. – Nova Southeastern University (NSU) is pleased to announce its Spring Commencement schedule for the 2010-2011 academic year. NSU will award Baccalaureate, Master’s and Doctoral degrees at its Commencement to students in a wide range of fields, including business, counseling, computer and information sciences, education, medicine, optometry, pharmacy, dentistry, various health professions, law, marine sciences, early childhood, human services, psychology and other social sciences.

Over the next few weeks, students, alumni, faculty, staff and guests will hear Commencement addresses from an individual who is considered pioneer in the field of education; a U.S. Naval Academy Colonel; an award-winning filmmaker and anthropologist; a member of Florida’s Supreme Court; and the Governor of the state of Florida.

Saturday, May 14 NSU Baccalaureate Commencement, 11 a.m.

Award-winning filmmaker and anthropologist Elizabeth Kapu’uwailani Lindsey, Ph.D., will serve as the 2011 undergraduate commencement speaker. Lindsey is the first female Fellow and Polynesian Explorer in the history of the National Geographic Society. She travels to the world’s most fragile regions to document and preserve knowledge critical to navigating the complexity of our times. Lindsey also works with United Nations Ambassadors on behalf of environmental refugees affected by the climate crisis. The commencement ceremony will be held jointly by NSU’s Farquhar College of Arts and Sciences, Abraham S. Fischler School of Education, and H. Wayne Huizenga School of Business and Entrepreneurship.

Saturday, May 14 NSU Sheppard Broad Law Center Commencement, 4:00 p.m.

Florida Supreme Court Justice Peggy A. Quince will present the keynote address during the Law Center Commencement Ceremony. Justice Quince was the first African-American female to be appointed to one of Florida’s district court of appeal. On December 8, 1998, she was appointed to the Florida Supreme Court, where she also served a term as Chief Justice. Justice Quince is a member of the executive council of the Appellate Section of The Florida Bar and is the Supreme Court liaison to the Workers’ Compensation Committee, the Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee, and the Supreme Court’s Family Court Steering Committee.

Sunday, May 29 NSU Health Professions Division (HPD) Commencement, 1:00 p.m.

Florida’s 45^th Governor, Rick Scott will deliver NSU’s Health Profession Division’s commencement address in late May. Born in Bloomington, Ill. and raised in Kansas City, Mo., Gov. Scott is considered one of America’s foremost entrepreneurs. The son of a truck driver and JC Penney clerk, Scott is known as an innovator in business, health care, and politics, and has developed a reputation in the health care industry for providing affordable, high quality services through a patient-centric approach to cost and care. He is the founder of two health care providers, Columbia Hospital Corporation and Solantic Corporation, which builds and operates urgent care facilities throughout Florida. Scott started Conservatives for Patients’ Rights, an organization founded to defend free market principles in health care that focused successfully on defeating President Obama’s government-run public option plan.

Sunday, June 12 NSU Graduate Schools Commencement, 11:00 a.m

Rebecca Tsosie, J.D., is a Willard H. Pedrick Distinguished Research Scholar and Professor of law at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University. Tsosie teaches in the areas of Indian law, Property, Bioethics, and Critical Race Theory, as well as seminars in International Indigenous Rights and in the College’s Tribal Policy, Law, and Government Master of Laws program. She has written and published widely on doctrinal and theoretical issues related to tribal sovereignty, environmental policy and cultural rights, and is the author of many prominent articles dealing with cultural resources and cultural pluralism. Tsosie also is the co-author with Carole Goldberg, Kevin Washburn and Elizabeth Rodke Washburn of a federal Indian law casebook. Her current research deals with Native rights to genetic resources. Professor Tsosie annually speaks at several national conferences on tribal sovereignty, self-determination, and tribal rights to environmental and cultural resources.

Tsosie joined the College faculty in 1993 and has served as Executive Director of the top-ranked Indian Legal Program since 1996. She was appointed as a Willard H. Pedrick Distinguished Research Scholar in 2005 and, before that, she held the title of Lincoln Professor of Native American Law and Ethics.

Professor Tsosie, who is of Yaqui descent, has worked extensively with tribal governments and organizations and serves as a Supreme Court Justice for the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation.

Sunday, June 12 Abraham S. Fischler School of Education Graduate School Commencement, 4:00 p.m

Colonel Arthur Athens, Director of the U.S. Naval Academy’s Vice Admiral James B. Stockdale Center for Ethical Leadership and a member of the Academy’s Senior Leadership Team will provide the Commencement address for the Fischler School of Education.  Athens retired from the Marine Corps in July 2008 with more than 30 years of combined active duty and reserve service.  As a Marine Officer, he commanded units in the 3^rd and 4^th Marine Aircraft Wings, served with the U.S. Space Command and instructed at Marine Aviation Weapons and Tactics Squadron 1.  Additionally, he was a White House Fellow under President Ronald Reagan, the Special Assistant to the NASA Administrator following the Space Shuttle Challenger accident, the Commandant of the United States Merchant Marine Academy, and the Naval Academy’s first Distinguished Military Professor of Leadership.

Each Commencement ceremony will take place at the BankAtlantic Center in Sunrise, FL. The NSU community is invited and encouraged to attend each Commencement ceremony as NSU celebrates and honors the achievements of its graduating students. Tickets are not required for admission to the ceremony.

About Nova Southeastern University: Located in Davie, Florida, Nova Southeastern University (NSU) is a dynamic fully accredited Florida University dedicated to providing high-quality educational programs of distinction from preschool through the professional and doctoral levels. NSU has more than 29,000 students and is the seventh largest not-for-profit independent institution nationally. The University awards associate’s, bachelor’s degrees, master’s degrees, specialist, and first-professional degrees in a wide range of fields, including business, counseling, computer and information sciences, education, medicine, optometry, pharmacy, dentistry, various health professions, law, marine sciences, early childhood, psychology and other social sciences.  Classified as a research university with “high research activity” by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, NSU was also awarded Carnegie’s Community Engagement Classification in 2010 for the University’s significant commitment to and demonstration of community engagement.   For more information about NSU visit www.nova.edu.

Media Contact:
Felecia Henderson | NSU Office of Public Affairs
954-262-5315 (office) | 954-383-4695 (cell) | fhenders@nova.edu