UNL to award more than 2,800 degrees May 6-7

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s May commencement exercises will be May 6 and 7 at Pinnacle Bank Arena and the Lied Center for Performing Arts.

The arena, at 400 Pinnacle Arena Drive, will host a ceremony for students earning graduate and professional degrees at 3 p.m. May 6 and one for those earning bachelor’s degrees at 9:30 a.m. May 7.

More than 2,800 degrees will be awarded. The ceremonies at Pinnacle Bank Arena will be live streamed here.

Timothy Carr, department chair and the Jean Sundell Tinstman Professor of Nutrition and Health Sciences at UNL, will deliver the address at the May 6 graduate and professional degrees ceremonies. Harvey Perlman, outgoing UNL chancellor, will deliver the address at the undergraduate commencement on May 7. Art Thompson, president of the Cooper Foundation in Lincoln, will receive a Builder Award during the undergraduate ceremony.

The University of Nebraska College of Law will conduct a separate commencement ceremony at 3 p.m. May 7 at the Lied Center, 301 N. 12th St. Lyle Denniston, legal journalist, professor and author, will address the law graduates.

Carr joined the UNL faculty in 1996 after faculty appointments at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine and the University of Minnesota. He earned his master of science in food science and doctorate in nutritional sciences from the University of Arizona. His research focuses on cholesterol transport in the body and how dietary factors influence cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. He has published more than 70 research articles, three textbooks, nine textbook chapters, and numerous magazine and newspaper articles on diet and health issues. Carr has received several research and teaching awards, including the Donald R. and Mary Lee Swanson Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2004 and the UNL Dean’s Award for Excellence in Graduate Education in 2010. Carr has lectured on diet and health issues throughout the United States, Europe, Asia and South America. He has been a consultant to the World Health Organization and private industry and is on the editorial boards for two professional journals.

Perlman was named UNL’s 19th chancellor in April 2001 after serving nearly a year as interim chancellor. A native of York, he earned a bachelor of arts in history and a juris doctorate from the University of Nebraska. After a year at the University of Chicago Law School, he joined the NU College of Law in 1967. He was on the faculty until 1974, when he joined the University of Virginia Law School. He returned to Nebraska in 1983, when he accepted the deanship of the law college, a post he held until 1998. He was also interim senior vice chancellor for academic affairs at UNL from 1995 to 1996. Some of Perlman’s biggest accomplishments as chancellor include the formation and continued development of Nebraska Innovation Campus; UNL’s 2011 admission to the Big Ten Conference and its Committee on Institutional Cooperation; steady growth in student enrollment resulting in an all-time high in 2015; sustained year-over-year growth in the university’s research expenditures; continued investment in campus infrastructure and facilities; and increased international partnerships. He plans to return to the Nebraska law faculty at the close of his chancellorship.

Thompson was elected a Cooper Foundation trustee in 1984 and president in 1990. He joined the board of the Mid-America Arts Alliance in 1989 and has been its treasurer and chair. He has chaired the Lincoln Arts Council, Nebraska Chapter of the Nature Conservancy, Nebraska Art Association and Lincoln Public Schools Foundation. He has been a board member for the Nebraska Arts Council; University of Nebraska Medical Center advisory board; legislative, research and conference committees of the Council on Foundations; and the Disciplinary Review Board of the Nebraska Supreme Court. He was assistant director of the University of Nebraska Union in the late 1960s and early 1970s, then became executive director of the Nebraska Interstate 80 Bicentennial Sculpture Project. The sculpture project, headquartered at the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery on the UNL campus, commissioned eight works of public sculpture for placement at rest areas along Interstate 80, seven of which remain. After that, Thompson was executive director of the Civic Center Corporation, formed to create a performing arts center in Lincoln; joined Twenty-First Century, Inc., a privately held company; and joined the Lincoln Telephone Company, where he was responsible for advertising and marketing. He graduated from Kent School in Kent, Connecticut, and received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English from UNL.

Denniston has reported on the U.S. Supreme Court since 1958. He writes for SCOTUSblog and is the constitutional literacy adviser for the National Constitution Center, contributing to its blog. He has also written for The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, The Baltimore Sun and The Washington Star, and has contributed to National Public Radio programs. Author of “The Reporter and the Law: Techniques for Covering the Courts,” Denniston has taught classes at Georgetown University, Penn State University, the Massachusetts School of Law and John Hopkins University. He has also delivered lectures at more than 30 colleges and universities across the United States. A native of Nebraska City, Denniston began his career working for the Nebraska City News-Press and the Lincoln Journal. He graduated from UNL in 1955 and earned a master’s degree in political science and history from Georgetown in 1957. Denniston has received numerous awards, including the inaugural Burton Foundation prize for legal reporting and the American Judicature Society prize for legal reporting and writing. He has been inducted into the Society of Professional Journalists’ Washington Hall of Fame and the Nebraska Journalism Hall of Fame.

The ceremonies are free and open to the public and no tickets are required. Because of security concerns, parcels, handbags and camera bags will be subject to search. There will be open seating in all areas except the arena floor, which will be reserved for graduates, faculty and dignitaries. Handicapped seating will be on the concourse level. Open captioning for people with hearing impairment will be provided through the ribbon screens at the corners of the arena concourse level. For Pinnacle Bank Arena seating charts, click here.

A drop-off area for mobility-restricted guests will be available on the south side of the post office building, 700 R St., directly east of Pinnacle Bank Arena.

Parking, including handicapped parking, is available in garages south of the arena and in the Festival Space parking area off Sun Valley Boulevard. The Festival Space parking area is accessible to the arena via a pedestrian bridge. Limited handicapped parking is available at Gate 4 on the north side of the arena off Pinnacle Arena Drive.

Parking maps are available here.

Guest services and first aid will be on Level 3 at Gate 112.

For more information, click here.