Blitzer to Speak, Receive Honorary Degree At UB Commencement Ceremony On May 16

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Wolf Blitzer, CNN's senior White House correspondent and a 1970 graduate of the University at Buffalo, will speak at the university's 153rd commencement ceremony at 10 a.m. May 16 in Alumni Arena on the UB North (Amherst) Campus.

Blitzer, who also hosts CNN's "Inside Politics Weekend," will be awarded an honorary SUNY Doctorate of Humane Letters during the ceremony, where degrees will be conferred upon graduating seniors from UB's College of Arts and Sciences.

Lucille Clifton, Western New York native, poet and author who twice has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, also will be awarded an honorary SUNY Doctorate of Humane Letters.

An honorary SUNY Doctorate of Science will be presented to Clifton A. Poodry, UB alumnus and director of the Division of Minority Opportunities in Research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Eli Ruckenstein and Robert Creeley, UB faculty members honored this year with top national awards in their fields, will receive the Chancellor Charles P. Norton Medal, UB's highest tribute, at the ceremony.

Ruckenstein, SUNY Distinguished Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, will be presented the National Medal of Science, the highest honor awarded in the U.S. for scientific achievement, in a White House ceremony April 27.

Creeley, pioneering American poet and Samuel P. Capen Chair in Poetry and the Humanities in the Department of English in the College of Arts and Sciences, is the recipient of the 1999 Bollingen Prize in Poetry, one of the most prestigious literary awards in the world.

Degrees will be awarded during the ceremony by UB President William R. Greiner and Provost David J. Triggle. Joining Blitzer as speakers will be Greiner and Joshua W. Walker, a graduating senior and winner of the Division of Student Affairs Senior Leadership Award.

Walker, Cynthia Rudin, Michael R. Tackett and Stephen J. Turkovich will receive the Chancellor's Award for Student Excellence.

Four graduates will receive the College of Arts and Sciences Dean's Outstanding Senior Awards: Jonathan W. Federick, for the arts; Thomas Varghese Kozhimannil, for the humanities; Alyssa Marie Johnson, for social and behavioral sciences, and Rudin, for science and mathematics.

Twenty-seven students also will be honored as outstanding graduates from the College of Arts and Sciences.

Student vocalist will be Dana Goldstein.

The general commencement ceremony will be one of 13 commencement ceremonies to be held at UB May 8-16.

The Norton medal is presented annually in public recognition of a person who has, in Norton's words, "performed some great thing which is identified with Buffalo... a great civic or political act, a great book, a great work of art, a great scientific achievement, or any other thing which in itself is truly great and ennobling and which dignifies the performer and Buffalo in the eyes of the world."

Ruckenstein, a UB faculty member since 1973 and a member of the prestigious National Academy of Engineering, is the first UB professor to receive the coveted National Medal of Science.

Considered the U.S. equivalent of the Nobel Prize, the award is bestowed on individuals who have made outstanding contributions to knowledge in the chemical, physical, biological, mathematical, engineering or social sciences.

Ruckenstein's research interests have covered nearly every aspect of chemical engineering, a breadth rarely seen in the work of a single scientist.

He conducts both theoretical and experimental research that not only has changed scientists' understanding of the fundamental phenomena of chemical processes, but has led to the development of enhanced research methods and new materials.

Ruckenstein has performed groundbreaking work on the theory of transfer phenomena, the chemistry of supported metal catalysts, catalytic combustion, detergents and the thermodynamics of microemulsions and other complex fluids. He pioneered thermodynamic theories of microemulsions and liquid crystals that explain their stability and was one of the first to propose models for the aggregation of surfactant molecules in solution, which he later extended to other complex fluids.

One of the most influential poets of his time, Creeley was an originator of the "Black Mountain" school of poetry, along with Charles Olson, Robert Duncan and Denise Levertov.

Black Mountain established a new and anti-academic poetic tradition that has been reflected in the work of many poets who have come to occupy significant places in the 20th-century literary canon.

He co-directs the UB Poetics Program, which he and his colleagues Charles Bernstein, Raymond Federman, Leslie Fiedler, Dennis Tedlock and Susan Howe developed to encourage the exploration of language and its capacity to express and represent human experience.

As the 1999 recipient of the Bollingen Prize in Poetry from the Yale University Library, Creeley joins an elite group that includes W.H. Auden, e.e. cummings, Robert Frost, Robert Penn Warren, James Merrill and John Ashbery. The Bollingen is presented biennially to an American poet for the best book published during the previous two years or for lifetime achievement in poetry.

Creeley, who has served on the UB English department faculty for more than 30 years, recently was elected to the Board of Chancellors of the American Academy of Poetry (AAP) along with several other pioneering writers who represent minority forms, themes and approaches to fin de siecle American life.

His election puts Creeley in a position to influence the distribution of a number of the academy's prizes and fellowships in a manner that is expected to take the academy in new directions.

Creeley has received a number of prestigious fellowships and awards during his career, including the Robert Frost Medal from the Poetry Society of America in 1987, the year he was elected to the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.

In 1988 he received the Walt Whitman Citation from the New York State Writers' Institute and, in accordance with the citation, was named New York State Poet Laureate for 1989-91.

Blitzer, who received a bachelor's degree in history from UB, began his journalism career in 1972 with the Reuters News Agency. He spent many years covering the nation's capital, including several as a Washington correspondent for The Jerusalem Post.

For his outstanding achievements as an acclaimed international journalist, he will receive a SUNY honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters.

He joined CNN in 1990 and served for two years as the network's military affairs correspondent at the Pentagon.

Blitzer was a member of the CNN team that won the prestigious Golden CableACE award from the National Academy of Cable Programming for coverage of the Persian Gulf War.

Senior White House correspondent for CNN since 1992, Blitzer has covered the White House and President Clinton. In 1994, he and CNN won the Best in the Business Award from American Journalism Review for the network's coverage of the Clinton administration. In 1996, he won an Emmy for his coverage of the Oklahoma City bombing.

Clifton will receive a SUNY honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters for her outstanding accomplishments as a versatile and prolific writer and a voice for social change.

Born into a close-knit African-American community in Depew, she is a nationally renowned author and poet whose works have appeared in every major American and African-American literary anthology.

Recipient of three National Education Association Awards, she has twice been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.

A Distinguished Professor of Humanities since 1989 at St. Mary's College in Maryland, Clifton is a former Maryland state poet.

In 1969, she published her first collection of poetry, "Good Times," which was immediately cited by The New York Times as one of the year's 10 best books.

Clifton is a prolific writer of children's stories and author of more than 20 books, which have been highly praised by education experts.

She attended Howard University and SUNY College at Fredonia.

Clifton A. Poodry, director of NIH's Division of Minority Opportunities in Research, will receive a SUNY honorary Doctorate of Science as a leader in biological research and a major advocate for minority education in the sciences.

He was born in Buffalo and raised on the Tonawanda Seneca Indian reservation.

Poodry earned a bachelor's degree in 1965 and a master's degree in 1968, both from UB, and the doctoral degree in 1971 from Case Western Reserve University.

As an important voice on issues related to higher education in the sciences, an outstanding administrator and a distinguished university professor of biology, Poodry has won numerous grants for his research and teacher-training initiatives, including a $1 million grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Undergraduate Biological Sciences Program.

He joined the faculty at University of California at Santa Cruz and later became chair of the biology department. Poodry also served as acting dean of natural sciences and acting associate vice chancellor for undergraduate affairs.

During his career, Poodry has been devoted to improving educational opportunities for Native Americans and other minority students.

He served on the advisory board and faculty of the Headlands Indian Health Careers Program at the University of Oklahoma and is a past member of the minority science education advisory committee for the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

The School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences will hold the first of the 13 commencement ceremonies scheduled at UB May 8-16. D. Bruce Johnstone, former SUNY chancellor and acting director of the Center for Comparative and Global Studies Center in the UB

Graduate School of Education, will speak at 2 p.m. May 8 in the Center for the Arts on the North Campus. Greiner, Triggle and John R. Wright, dean of the medical school, will confer degrees.

Other ceremonies scheduled at UB, speakers and those who will confer degrees are:

o Graduate School, 2 p.m., May 14, Center for the Arts. Kerry S. Grant, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, will speak. Triggle will confer degrees.

o School of Health Related Professions, 9 a.m., May 15, Alumni Arena. Michael E. Bernardino, vice president for health affairs, will speak and confer degrees.

o School of Social Work, 9 a.m., May 15, Center for the Arts. The Honorable Margaret R. Anderson, Buffalo City Court judge, will speak. Kenneth J. Levy, senior vice provost, will confer degrees.

o School of Nursing, 9 a.m., May 15, Slee Concert Hall, North Campus. Linda D. Oakley, associate professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison School of Nursing, will speak. Triggle will confer degrees.

o School of Information and Library Studies, 10 a.m., May 15, Student Union Theatre, North Campus. Dean George S. Bobinski will speak. Greiner will confer degrees.

o Engineering and Applied Sciences, 1 p.m., May 15, Alumni Arena. Triggle and dean Mark H. Karwan will speak. Triggle will confer degrees.

o Law School, 1 p.m., May 15, Center for the Arts. The Hon. Denise E. O'Donnell, U.S. attorney for the Western District of New York, will speak. Dean R. Nils Olsen, Jr., will confer degrees.

o School of Pharmacy, 1 p.m., May 15, Slee Concert Hall. Dean Wayne K. Anderson will speak. Greiner will confer degrees.

o School of Architecture and Planning, 3 p.m., May 15, lawn outside Hayes Hall, South (Main Street) Campus. Speaker will be Kent Kleinman of the Department of Architecture at the University of Michigan. Dean Bruno B. Freschi will confer degrees.

o School of Management, 5 p.m., May 15, Alumni Arena. Dean Lewis Mandell will speak. Triggle will confer degrees.

o Graduate School of Education, 5 p.m., May 15, Center for the Arts. Yolanda Moses, president of the City University of New York City College, will speak. Greiner will confer degrees.

o School of Dental Medicine, 2 p.m., May 16, Center for the Arts. Charles Bertolami, dean of dental medicine at the University of California at San Francisco, will speak. Bernardino will confer degrees.