Commencement Ceremony, May 18
Commencement Ceremony, May 18
Presidential Medal and Honorary Degree to be Awarded
April 29, 2014
Jane Lindholm will deliver the address at Lyndon State College’s 102nd commencement ceremonies on Sunday, May 18, 2014. Lindholm, host of the award-winning Vermont Public Radio program Vermont Edition, has been recognized with regional and national awards for interviewing and use of sound. She was named one of Vermont’s “Rising Stars” by Vermont Business Magazine in 2013 and won a 2014 regional Edward R Murrow Award for “State of Mind,” an audio documentary piece on Vermont’s mental health care system.
Lindholm holds a degree in Anthropology from Harvard University and has worked as writer and editor for Let’s Go Travel Guides. An avid photographer, she has had her photojournalism picked up by the BBC World Service. Lindholm lives in Monkton with her husband, son, and Ollie, “quite possibly the most spoiled and doted upon dog in the history of North America.”
She will be joined on the dais by student speaker Nichole Slabinski ’14. Graduating seniors Jacob Machell, Ry MacDonald and Colin Murphy of Suncooked, will provide music and Kaleigh Clowery ’14 will sing the national anthem. The Catamount Pipe Band will play both processional and recessional; Ian MacDonald ’14 is the pipe major.
LSC President Joe Bertolino will present Joseph D’Aleo with an honorary doctoral degree for his accomplishments as an educator and as a pioneer in the field of broadcast meteorology. While at Lyndon, D’Aleo helped establish an Air Force ROTC program, a campus weather service, a weather forecast company (known today as North Winds Weather), and the Northeast Storm Conference-which held its 39th annual conference in March. After leaving Lyndon in 1980, D’Aleo’s expertise in broadcast meteorology led him to a partnership with John Coleman. He and Coleman turned Coleman’s vision for a 24-hour, 7-day-a-week television station dedicated to weather forecasting the into The Weather Channel.
This is the second honorary degree awarded by LSC since Poet Galway Kinnell was recognized in 2002; in 2013, Dr. Ray Griffin of Barton, Vermont, was made an honorary member of the Class of 1942.
Bertolino will also present Vermont State Colleges Board Chair Gary W. Moore with the 2014 LSC Presidential Medal of Distinction. The award, created in 2013, honors an individual or organization who has contributed significantly to both Lyndon State College and the NEK community. This year, Moore also received New England Board of Higher Education’s (NEBHE) 2014 David C. Knapp Award for Trusteeship and was honored with a Vermont resolution for his “accomplishments as an educator, environmentalist, and civic leader.”
More than 220 graduates and their families are expected to fill the tent on the LSC soccer field for the 11 a.m. ceremony. There will be reserved spaces for wheelchairs under the tent. The event will also be broadcast live in the climate-controlled Alexander Twilight Theatre and on the College’s website at LyndonState.edu. A pre-ceremony breakfast social in the Theatre lobby is planned. The post-ceremony reception in the Stannard Gym will give students “photo ops” with faculty, family, and friends. Both receptions are open to all.
Public Safety officials will be on campus all day to direct guests to available parking areas. Shuttle service and/or accommodations will be available for those unable to walk distances.
For further details, visit LyndonState.edu or call Tracy Sherbrook at 802 626-6406.