Psychology Department -> Undergraduate Office ->
The University of Texas Psychology Department
Graduation Ceremony
Remarks to Graduates
May 2003
Michael Domjan, Professor and Department Chair
Good afternoon and welcome parents, friends, distinguished guests. Most importantly, welcome to all of you in the graduating class of 2003. We are here to celebrate the marvelous accomplishments of each of you, and to thank your parents and guardians for supporting you during your college career. All of you have a lot to be proud of.
Although this is a solemn occasion, we also want it to be fun. Please feel free to take pictures, shout out greetings to your loved ones, or celebrate in your own unique way. This is your ceremony. We want you to enjoy it.
Let me begin by introducing some of the distinguished guests and faculty on the stage this afternoon.
We are pleased to have Dean Brian Roberts, from the College of Liberal Arts. Dean Roberts has worked hard on many challenging projects for the Psychology Department, most recently a major laboratory renovation. Thank you for all of help over the years, Dr. Roberts.
Our Marshals for the ceremony are Professor George Holden, who also serves as the Associate Chair of the Psychology Department and Dennis McFadden, Ashbel Smith Professor of Psychology. Our Commencement Speaker will be Dr. Terry Sullivan. I will have more to say about her in a minute.
This has been an exciting year—more exciting than we might have wanted. From the war in Iraq, terrorism in many parts of the world, the crash of the space shuttle Columbia, problems of drug abuse and violence in our communities, and the challenge of creating an educated and healthy workforce for the future of Texas, we have a lot to deal with. Each problem has its unique features. However, all of the major problems in our communities and the world have one thing in common: they involve human behavior in some way. The critical challenges that we face are not problems of technology or engineering. They are problems of behavior. Problems of how we get along with one another, how we learn new skills, how we overcome drug abuse and drug addiction, and how we make best use modern technology. In recognition of that fact, the United States Congress declared the first decade of the new millennium to be The Decade of Behavior. As a graduate with a major in Psychology, you are ambassadors in this national recognition of the importance of behavior in human affairs.
In the course of your study of Psychology, you learned about the fundamentals of human behavior. You learned how to formulate focused questions, how to look for answers to those questions, and most importantly how to evaluate evidence in support of those answers.
And, you learned about all that in one of the best Psychology Departments in the world. The students and faculty here are truly remarkable. Don’t you agree?
How many of you took a course with Professor Wendy Domjan? In recognition of her excellence as a teacher, she recently received the Harry Ransom Teaching Award. This is one of the University’s most prestigious awards and includes a well deserved $5,000 honorarium.
Our faculty and students work at the forefront of social, clinical, and health psychology, and provide new insights into issues in child development, the neural mechanisms of behavior, cognition and perception, and evolutionary psychology.
How many of you took courses with Professor Caryn Carlson or Professor Marc Lewis? Dr. Carlson and Dr. Lewis are co-directors of our Clinical Psychology Ph.D. program. I am pleased to report that this program was recently admitted into the highly selective Academy of Psychological Clinical Science.
Our faculty are also frequently featured in news reports. Professor Cindy Meston’s research on female sexuality was featured on the network television show 20/20. Professor Michael Telch was the focus of two National Geographic specials dealing with his research on anxiety disorders. Professor Eyal Seidemann won the prestigious Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship for young investigators.
I could go on but I don’t want to cut into the time reserved for our Commencement Speaker, Dr. Terry Sullivan. Dr. Sullivan is Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs for The University of Texas System. She joined the UT-Austin faculty, after earning a Ph.D. degree at the University of Chicago. She quickly moved up the ranks to become Professor of Sociology and Professor of Law. From 1990-92, she served as Chair of the Sociology Department and then held a series of prestigious administrative positions, including being Vice President and Dean of Graduate Studies at UT-Austin for 7 years.
Dr. Sullivan is the co-author of the leading textbook on the sociology of work titled The Social Organization of Work. A labor force demographer, she writes on issues of economic marginality and has written half a dozen books and 75 scholarly articles and contributed chapters. She received the Silver Gavel Award of the American Bar Association for her recent of consumer bankruptcy.
As chief academic officer of the UT System, Dr. Sullivan is responsible for issues of academic quality at all of the University of Texas campuses. These campuses together enroll 160,000 students.
Dr. Sullivan has been president of the Association of Graduate Schools, the Conference of Southern Graduate Schools, and the Association of Texas Graduate Schools. She is member of the Graduate Record Examination Board, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and past Chair of the U.S. Census Advisory Committee. She also served on advisory boards to the Secretary of Commerce on the accuracy of the 1990 and 2000 census counts. She has been on advisory panels of the National Research Council. But, I bet her most memorable accomplishments were winning the President’s Associates Teaching Excellence Award, the Student’s Associates Teaching Excellence Award, and the Liberal Arts Council Teaching Excellence Award. A consummate scholar, teacher, and now the academic steward of the University of Texas system, ladies and gentlemen, Professor Teresa Sullivan.
It is my pleasure now to call Fallon Franklin to the stage. Fallon is a Psychology major in her junior year here at UT. She taught herself guitar and wrote her first song at the age of 10. She has been performing around the state for the past 7 years and plans to continue her musical career after graduation. We are fortunate to have her perform for us today. Fallon Franklin, ladies and gentlemen.
Let me now call on Professor Clarke Burnham to announce the graduate students who are receiving their doctoral degrees in Psychology today.
Next I am pleased to introduce two distinguished members of our faculty who supervised our undergraduate honors students this year, Professor Randy Diehl and Professor Art Markman. To graduate with Honors, students have to have a GPA of at least 3.5 in Psychology. What’s more difficult, they also have to design and complete an original research project and write it up in the form similar to that of a Master’s Thesis. Professors Diehl and Markman will introduce the graduating Honors Students and tell us about their thesis projects.
At this point I am pleased to present the other graduating seniors of the class of 2003. They are a stellar group. Steven Leary will be going to law school at Texas Tech University on a Regent’s Scholarship that will cover all of his tuition and fees. Sydney Kroll will continue his studies in the clinical psychology PsyD program at Baylor University. Doran Levine, Vanessa Robles, and Bethany Weinstein will be studying towards advanced degrees in Social Work. Taylor Simpson is going into the Ph.D. Program in Behavioral Neuroscience here at UT Austin. Taylor was the winner of a UT Undergraduate Research Fellowship and a recipient of the National Pathfinder Scholarship, the
Decherd Liberal Arts Honors Scholarship and the Robert C. Byrd Scholarship.
Getting a UT degree is a remarkable accomplishment for everyone but especially for those of you who are the first in your families to achieve this milestone. Such is the case for Marvin Morales. His parents, Irma and Rolando, emigrated from Guatamala. Marvin and his siblings are the first in the Morales family to go to college. Congratulations to you Marvin, and to all of you in the graduating class of 2003.
The names of the graduating seniors will be read by two of our Academic Advisers Vicky Loukas and Joel Mendolusky, as well as by the Undergraduate Adviser for Psychology, Professor Jacqueline Woolley. Marshals, please assemble the graduating class of 2003.
“Class of 2003, I pronounce you graduated!”
What a glorious occasion. It must be a great joy and relief for you to have completed your degrees. I bet your graduation is also a great joy and relief for your parents and friends who supported you through this challenging journey. I invite you to stand and waive to your parents and friends to express your appreciation for their support.
I would like to thank Alice Andrews and Professor Woolley for all of their work in planning this afternoon’s ceremony, member of the Long Horn Band for providing the instrumental music, and the staff of the Psychology Department for serving as ushers.
Please remain in the hall until the faculty and graduates have exited from the building. They will meet you on the plaza outside.
To close, I would like to call on Vicky Loukas to lead us in the singing of “The Eyes of Texas.” Welcome Vicky.
