May 4, 1999
Members of the class of 1999 will assemble along Memorial Drive at 2 p.m. for the traditional march down Mount Oread and into Memorial Stadium.
The procession of two lines will start at 2:30 p.m., the program at about 3:30 p.m. Memorial Drive will be closed to traffic all day Sunday.
This year's graduating class numbers about 5,300. That total includes 2,080 who received degrees last summer and fall and about 3,200 who are candidates for degrees this month. In 1998, 5,073 students graduated from KU's Lawrence campus.
William R. Docking, chair of the Kansas Board of Regents; Kenneth C. Havner, member of the Board of Regents; Paul J. "Jim" Adams, national chair of the KU Alumni Association; and Chancellor Robert E. Hemenway will offer remarks. Hemenway will confer degrees.
Commencement will be broadcast on television and the Internet thanks to KU's William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications. The school's television station, KUJH, will broadcast the ceremonies on channel 14 and Lawrence's cable channel 68. The event can be seen on the Internet at www.cc.ukans.edu/~jschool. Replays will be at 7 p.m. May 23 and 24.
If it is raining the morning of commencement, an announcement will be made at noon about arrangements for a postponed ceremony. Announcements will be made through the KU Information Center, 864-3506, and radio stations, including KANU (FM-91.5), KLZR (FM-106), KJHK (FM-91), WIBW (AM-580), WDAF (AM-610) and KLWN (AM-1320), as well as Sunflower Cablevision Channel 6.
If the weather begins to clear in early afternoon, the first attempt to hold a postponed ceremony will be at 4:30 p.m. Graduates will assemble on Memorial Drive at 4 p.m. If the weather does not begin to clear in time for a 4:30 p.m. ceremony, a second attempt will be made at 6:30 p.m. Graduates will assemble on Memorial Drive at 6 p.m.
If it is still raining, the ceremony will be postponed until Monday, May 24, when graduates will line up at 8:30 a.m. for a 9 a.m. procession.
The consumption of alcohol and cereal malt beverages on university property is strictly prohibited.
Commencement information and an up-to-date schedule of events are available on the World Wide Web at http://www.ur.ku.edu/commence/. The KU Information Center is open 7 days a week to answer questions about KU and Lawrence and to assist in handling problems. If you need assistance, call the center at (785) 864-3506.
Story by Todd Cohen, University Relations, (785) 864-8858 or tcohen@ukans.edu