Media Releases

University of Toronto celebrates esteemed honorary graduates

June 1, 2015

TORONTO, ON – More than 13,000 stu­dents will grad­u­ate from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to at con­vo­ca­tion cer­e­monies tak­ing place from Tues­day, June 2 to Fri­day, June 19 in Con­vo­ca­tion Hall, 31 King’s Col­lege Cir­cle on the University’s down­town cam­pus.

More than 44,000 peo­ple are expect­ed to vis­it the Uni­ver­si­ty dur­ing con­vo­ca­tion.

As part of spring con­vo­ca­tion, U of T will be con­fer­ring hon­orary degrees on promi­nent lead­ers in sci­ence, film, pol­i­tics, sport – and more.

Mem­bers of the media are wel­come to attend con­vo­ca­tion cer­e­monies but are asked to con­firm their atten­dance in advance by con­tact­ing U of T media rela­tions at 416–978-0100.

The sched­ule of cer­e­monies with hon­orary grad­u­ates is as fol­lows:

  • Tues­day, June 2 at 2:30 p.m., hon­orary grad­uand Arnold Aber­man; U of T pro­fes­sor emer­i­tus and senior admin­is­tra­tor who trans­formed Toronto’s teach­ing hos­pi­tals
  • Wednes­day, June 3 at 10:00 a.m., hon­orary grad­uand Bob Mac­Don­ald, renowned sci­ence jour­nal­ist and host of CBC’s Quirks and Quarks
  • Wednes­day, June 3 at 2:30 p.m., hon­orary grad­uands Rober­to Benig­ni and Nico­let­ta Braschi, Ital­ian film­mak­ing duo known the world over for the Acad­e­my Award-win­ning Life is Beau­ti­ful (NOTE: PHOTOS ONLY)
  • Fri­day, June 5 at 10:00 a.m., hon­orary grad­uand Paul Vol­ck­er, U.S. econ­o­mist cred­it­ed with end­ing America’s spi­ralling econ­o­my in the 1980s
  • Tues­day, June 9 at 2:30 p.m., hon­orary grad­uand Abi­gail Hoff­man, four-time Olympic track ath­lete who rev­o­lu­tion­ized women’s sport in Cana­da
  • Thurs­day, June 11 at 2:30 p.m., hon­orary grad­uand Frank McKen­na, for­mer New Brunswick pre­mier who led the province to unprece­dent­ed growth and pros­per­i­ty between 1987 and 1997
  • Fri­day, June 12 at 10:00 a.m., hon­orary grad­uand Jan Gehl, award-win­ning Dan­ish archi­tect and urban design­er who has trans­formed urban envi­ron­ments in cities like Copen­hagen, Lon­don and New York
  • Fri­day, June 12 at 2:30 p.m., hon­orary grad­uand Chan­tal Petit­clerc, 14-time Par­a­lympic Games gold medal­ist in wheel­chair rac­ing and Right to Play ambas­sador
  • Mon­day, June 15 at 10:00 a.m., hon­orary grad­uand Alfred Aho, world-lead­ing com­put­er sci­en­tist known for ground­break­ing research on pro­gram­ming lan­guages and algo­rithms
  • Wednes­day, June 17 at 2:30 p.m., hon­orary grad­uand Jacque­line Novo­gratz, founder of Acu­men Fund and glob­al thought leader on aid in devel­op­ing coun­tries
  • Fri­day, June 19 at 10:00 a.m., hon­orary grad­uand Maria Klawe, renowned com­put­er sci­en­tist and math­e­mati­cian, and inter­na­tion­al advo­cate for women in sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy, engi­neer­ing and math

For more infor­ma­tion about indi­vid­ual con­vo­ca­tions, please vis­it convocation.utoronto.ca.

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For more infor­ma­tion, con­tact:
U of T Media Rela­tions
416–978-0100
media.relations@utoronto.ca
#UofTGrad15