UH Manoa celebrates spring commencement ceremonies at Stan Sheriff Center on Saturday, May 16

University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
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Posted: May 6, 2009

Dr. Hank Wuh, founder and CEO of Cellular Bioengineering, will be the featured speaker at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa‘s Spring 2009 commencement ceremonies on Saturday, May 16 at the Stan Sheriff Center.

The undergraduate ceremony is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. (student procession begins at 8:30 a.m.), and will end at noon. More than 1,500 students are eligible to receive bachelor‘s degrees at the undergraduate ceremony.

Later in the day, from 3-5 p.m., master‘s and doctor‘s degrees and post-baccalaureate certificates in secondary education will be awarded to nearly 800 graduate degree candidates.

An estimated 2,300 students will receive degrees and certificates for the spring semester and 2009 summer session. Students completing their degree requirements during the summer are eligible to participate in this month‘s ceremonies, since the August commencement is no longer on the academic calendar.

The UH Board of Regents will present honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degrees to Agnes "Aunty Aggie" Kalanihookaha Cope, a beloved educator, kumu hula and advocate for Native Hawaiians; and Albert Wendt, an esteemed educator, novelist and poet of the Pacific.

Sarah Kumi Morihara, a graduating senior in biotechnology through the College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, will be student speaker. She was valedictorian of her graduating class at Leilehua High in 2005, and has been on the UH Mānoa‘s Dean‘s List since enrolling at UH Mānoa.

Undergraduate Honors Program candidates are Kelsie K. Abing, Natalia H. Cardona, Megan Chan, Michael K. Ciacci, Douglas Cullison, Norman E. Ellis, Gizelle E. Gajelonia, Elisia J.P. Gatmen, Christy Ann L. Gilman, Kristin M. Herrick, Jessica L. Honsinger, Kara S. Kusunoki, Edna Y. Leung, Annalia Montany, Kelly Y. Morikone, Jenifer L. Nix, Samantha Olejniczak, Ariel Ricker, Holly Sevier, Christopher K. Sheehey, Cortney K. Silva and Kazuki Takizawa.

Also receiving recognition during the ceremony will be Regents‘ Scholars Reece Iwami, Kara Kusunoki, Bobby Kwan, Lee Ying Kwok, Kacie Miura, Kelly Morikone, Jason Nagaoka, Janice Quach, Krystle Salazar, Megan S. Terawaki and Dayton Wong.

Presidential Scholar graduates are Jennifer Abayon, Issac Arasato, Jason Maligmat, Elsie Matsuoka, Sarah Morihara and Kathleen Ramirez.

The Board of Regents established the Regents‘ and Presidential Scholarships in 1987 as the university‘s first full scholarships based solely on academic excellence and reserved for Hawaiʻi‘s best high school and community college students.

Selected as commencement speaker for both morning and afternoon ceremonies, Dr. Wuh is an ʻIolani School graduate who went on to pioneer the bioengineering of human corneas and other tissues to address the severe worldwide shortage of donors. He earned a B.A. in Human Biology from Johns Hopkins University, a M.P.H. from Harvard University, and Medical Doctorate from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Before founding Cellular Bioengineering, Wuh interned at the UH Mānoa John A. Burns School of Medicine‘s Integrated Surgical Residency Program, then served as resident and chief resident in orthopedic surgery at Stanford University Medical Center.

Logistics:

Doors to the Stan Sheriff Center will open at 8 a.m. for the undergraduate ceremony and at 2 p.m. for the advanced degree ceremony. Both events are free and open to the public. No tickets are issued, and seating is on a first-come, first-served basis. Balloons and strollers are not allowed inside the Stan Sheriff Center.

Free parking will be available in the lower campus parking structure, which will open at 6 a.m. Friends and family members may greet graduates following the ceremony on the football practice field (surnames A-L), the soccer practice field (M-T) and at the softball stadium (U-Z). Authorized lei vendors will be located in the area.

There will be a live webcast of the ceremony. For more information on it, and further details about the commencement ceremony, visit http://manoa.hawaii.edu/commencement.