Spotlight on Excellence
In Record Numbers, Members of the Graduating Class of Alcorn State
University Continue to Push Forward the Agenda of the Academic
Resort
The Honorable Percy W. Watson, Chairman, House Ways and
Means Committee, Mississippi Legislature, Will Be the Keynote
Speaker at Commencement on May 13
Of the many benchmarks to be set by this year’s graduating class
at Alcorn State University, of particular importance is the
historic increase in the number of graduates in several key
academic areas, specifically, the areas of nursing, mass
communications, and accounting.
“We are graduating more students across multiple and rigorous
disciplines than we ever have in our 135-year history,” said
Alcorn President Dr. Clinton Bristow, Jr. “We are
graduating more nurses to combat the nationwide shortage of these
professionals in the health care sector, more accountants to help
industries manage their financial resources in the most ethical
and responsible ways possible, and more communicators to tell the
compelling story of this and other remarkable achievements.”
The 135th Commencement of Alcorn will
take place on Saturday, May 13,
beginning at 8:30 a.m. in the Jack Spinks Stadium on the
institution’s main campus in Lorman, Mississippi. Of the
nearly 600 members who comprise the 2006 graduating class,
approximately half have indicated plans to go on to graduate
and/or professional school, a direct correlation with the
institution’s nationally celebrated Academic Agenda. The
Academic Agenda at Alcorn has two basic tenets: 1) each
student will receive a unique and enriching experience, and 2)
each student will be prepared for and encouraged to go on to
graduate and/or professional school.
Discipline-by-discipline, the number of graduates remained fairly
constant this year, as compared to last year. There is a slight
increase in the number of accounting graduates this year, as
compared to last year, but a much more dramatic increase in the
number of graduates who will be earning degrees in mass
communications and nursing this year. The number of anticipated
graduates in mass communicates has nearly doubled from 12 last
year to 23 this year. Graduates expected to receive the
associate’s degree in nursing this year total 43, compared to 28
who received the associate’s degree in nursing last year. Also,
graduates expected to receive the bachelor’s degree in nursing
this year total 38, compared to 25 last year.
“This has been a banner year for us,” said Dr. Bristow. “We have
been nationally recognized as having one of the most improved
graduation rates of any public institution in the United States,
and we are continuing to build on our position of being the
educational and social epicenter of southwest Mississippi and
northeast Louisiana. Alcorn is truly becoming a regional
institution of higher learning.”
Celebrated for its diversity and its growing contingent of
international students across three separate and distinct learning
sites, Alcorn has effectively shattered popular myth associated
with small, rurally located historically black institutions. Of
the institution’s 3,400 students, more than 12 percent are
comprised of non-African American students. Students from more
than two dozen countries are represented among Alcorn’s famously
diverse student body. Alcorn’s ability to recruit and retain its
other race student population of at least 10 percent now for more
than three consecutive years has also enabled to institution to
begin receiving its share of endowment dollars as part of the $500
million Ayers desegregation settlement. Alcorn is the only one of
the three historically black institutions in the state of
Mississippi to reach this benchmark of diversity.
Joining this diverse mix of graduates will be publishing magnate
and business pioneer Earl Graves, the founder and publisher
of Black Enterprise magazine, who will receive an honorary
doctorate from Alcorn. Mr. Graves’ background and success in
business is tailor-made for the academic emphasis that students
experience at Alcorn on the undergraduate as well as graduate
level.
“At
Alcorn, ASU equals CEO,” said Dr. Bristow. “We do not want our
students to just work at the leading corporations in the country
and around the world. We want our students to run those
corporations. Mr. Graves is an example of what is possible if one
applies himself and commits himself to excellence. Our students
need firsthand contact with role models like him.”
Another role model for Alcorn graduates to emulate and learn from
is Mississippi State Representative
Percy W. Watson, who will deliver this year’s Commencement
address. An attorney who has served in the Mississippi state
legislature for more than a quarter century, Representative Watson
serves as Chairman on the powerful Ways and Means Committee, as
well as the Enrolled Bills, Investigate State Offices, Judiciary
A, Legislative Budget, Management, Select Committee on Accessible
& Affordable Medical Malpractice Insurance, and State Library
committees. He is also affiliated with the Jesse Brown Lodge, Phi
Beta Kappa, NAACP, Mississippi Legal Services, and the
Mississippi, Iowa, Alaska, National, and American Bar Association.
“Representative Watson is a friend of Alcorn and a long-time legal
colleague,” said Dr. Bristow. “We emphasize the importance of
graduate school education not only for the added knowledge that
such education affords our students, but for the sheer global
marketability that such academic preparation represents as well.”
The 135th Annual
Commencement of Alcorn State University takes place on Saturday,
May 13, 2006, beginning at 8:30 a.m. in the Jack Spinks Stadium on
the institution’s main campus, which is located at 1000 ASU Drive
in Lorman, Mississippi. For more information, contact the Office
of University Relations at (601) 877-6131.
Alcorn State University - Natchez Campus
Alcorn State University School of Nursing Class
of 2006 Pinning Ceremony and MSN Student's recognition took
place on Thursday, May 11, 2006, in the Natchez Convention Center,
Natchez, MS.
Class of 2006 has 88 graduates, of which 37
individuals graduated from Department of Associate Degree Nursing,
33 - from Department of Baccalaureate Nursing, 20 - from
Department of Graduate Nursing (2 of which received post masters
degree certificates).
Alcorn State University Master of Business
Administration Program (MBA) held a reception honoring 2006
Graduates on Thursday, May 11, 2006.
Class of 2006 has 18 graduates, 2 of them will
complete the program in summer, 2006, 7 of them will complete the
program in December, 2006.
To read more please check
http://www/Bulletin/GoodNews.htm
Commencement. Saturday, May 13th, 2006
