Rider Holds 147th Undergraduate Commencement

Editor's Note: The following is a news release issued by .

Rider University proudly bestowed the honorary Doctor of Science upon Dr. Maureen Maguire ’75, Carolyn F. Jones Professor of Ophthalmology and Vice Chair for Clinical Research in the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Pennsylvania, at the University’s 147th Undergraduate Commencement ceremony on Friday, May 11.

Rider President Mordechai Rozanski also conferred 806 baccalaureate degrees to students who had successfully completed their studies the previous week. They join 410 who received their diplomas the night before at the Graduate and College of Continuing Studies Commencement, and 131 who will receive theirs at the 83rd Westminster Choir College Commencement on Saturday, May 12.

Rozanski congratulated the day’s graduates, who made up part of Rider’s total graduating class of 1,347, joining an alumni family more than 50,000.

“In awarding you your degree, we share with you that sense of mastery, pride and joy that comes with reaching a hard-earned goal,” said Rozanski, the University’s president since 2003. “Not only have you made it today, but I’m confident that you can look forward to more success in the future. The knowledge and skills you have attained at Rider, and particularly, the skill of continuous learning, are lifetime assets that will help you better manage both the opportunities and challenges you will encounter.”

Heather Shankman ’12 of Basking Ridge, N.J., an Advertising major with a double minor in Public Relations and Sports Marketing who nearly died from a heart ailment in late 2010, presented the student address.

“I remained on life support for three days, since I was unable to breathe on my own, while the doctors told my parents that it did not look promising and they should consider making the necessary arrangements,” Shankman told her classmates. “I have had two heart surgeries as a result of my near-death experience, but I can assure everyone here today that if I can get through all of this, with my head held high, pushing forward, you can do anything you set your mind to.”

Rider has been celebrating the 50th anniversary of its School of Liberal Arts and Sciences throughout the 2011-12 academic year, and Rozanski will bestow the honorary Doctor of Science upon one of its alumnae, 1975 graduate Maureen G. Maguire, Ph.D.

Maguire joined the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania in July 1994 to establish the Center for Preventive Ophthalmology and Biostatistics. Since then, she has held leadership positions in several multicenter clinical trials for the prevention and treatment of age-related macular degeneration sponsored by industry and the National Institutes of Health. In addition, she was actively involved in the development of the Vision in Preschoolers Study, a National Eye Institute-sponsored, multicenter, clinical investigation of methods for screening young children for vision problems.

As a student at Rider, Maguire was an Andrew J. Rider Scholar and led the Math Club. She graduated summa cum laude as Mathematics major and was chosen as the valedictorian of the Class of 1975. She received her doctoral degree in 1983 from the Department of Biostatistics at the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health and subsequently joined the faculty of the Department of Ophthalmology, School of Medicine, at Johns Hopkins.

A Green Graduation

For the third year in a row, Rider and Westminster Choir College are using GreenWeaver caps and gowns, made from 100 percent, post-consumer recycled plastic bottles, to robe all students for Commencement 2012 exercises. Eco-friendly GreenWeaver gowns are made of fabric spun from molten plastic pellets, producing a comfortably soft fabric that literally turns trash into keepsakes. Each gown represents about 23 bottles.

Produced by Oak Hall Cap & Gown of Salem, Va., the GreenWeaver will be used by approximately 5 percent of colleges and universities this year. GreenWeaver is not biodegradable – Oak Hall vice president Donna Hodges maintains that caps and gowns should be keepsakes for a lifetime – but the fabric is easily recycled into other products, including fabric fill for coats. Oak Hall estimates that approximately 310,000 graduating students will wear GreenWeaver caps and gowns this year, and that the company has diverted about 9 million plastic bottles from landfills.

Learn more about GreenWeaver caps and gowns at: http://oakhalli.com/greenweavermovement.php.

In addition, the Commencement programs have been printed on recycled FSC Certified paper using vegetable-based inks.