Completing a year of challenges and successes

President Richard L. McCormick started off commencement 2007 with a warning. “We do believe the storm is on the way,” McCormick said. “If it comes, I’ll graduate you all in a flash, and we can take appropriate shelter.” The audience – representatives of the 11,000 degree recipients this year, their friends and family, and Rutgers faculty and staff – responded with laughter.

Indeed, the reading of the names of doctoral candidates had to be cut short when the skies darkened and tree branches began to sway. Thousands streamed off of historic Voorhees Mall and onto College Avenue, looking for their cars or some kind of shelter.

Commencement is the universitywide ceremony in which all Rutgers graduates, this year estimated at 10,990, are granted their baccalaureate, master’s, and doctoral degrees. But graduates of schools and colleges in New Brunswick, Newark, and Camden also received recognition at 23 other ceremonies during the third week of May.