AUSTIN, Texas—The commencement address for the 119th spring commencement at The University of Texas at Austin on May 18 will be presented by Edwin Dorn, dean of the university’s Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs.
Dorn’s topic is "Inventing the future."
“Of all the wonderful things this nation has created, the most important is the shared conviction that tomorrow will be, and should be, different from today,” Dorn said.
The university-wide commencement event at 8 p.m. on the South Mall is free and open to the public. It will be preceded at 7 p.m. by a carillon prelude and a commencement concert.
Dorn has had a distinguished career in public life and higher education. He has been dean of the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs since 1997, immediately prior to which he served for four years with the United States government as undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness.
Before his presidential appointment in the Department of Defense, he was a senior staff member at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., where he developed executive education programs for government and private sector managers. From 1981 to 1990, Dorn was deputy director for research at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.
A native of Houston, Dorn was graduated Phi Beta Kappa from The University of Texas at Austin and completed his Ph.D. in political science at Yale. He was named a distinguished alumnus of The University of Texas at Austin in 1998. He is the author of Rules and Racial Equality, published by Yale University Press, and the editor of the volume Who Defends America? He has published dozens of articles, reports and opinion pieces.
In addition to his duties as dean, Dorn is the university’s faculty representative to the Big 12 athletics conference and the NCAA. He also is a board member or adviser to several nonprofit organizations, including the Institute for Defense Analyses, the Kettering Foundation, the Children’s Defense Fund and the Capital Area United Way.
Dorn is married to Franchelle Stewart Dorn, an actress and a professor in the Department of Theater and Dance at The University of Texas at Austin. They have three daughters.
For further information contact: Robert D. Meckel, Office of Public Affairs, (512) 471-3151.
