The 63rd annual Honors Day ceremonies recognizing the academic accomplishments of 3,907 students from The University of Texas at Austin will be celebrated at 2 p.m. Saturday, April 16, in the university’s Frank Erwin Center.
The honorees include 3,216 students who will be recognized as College Scholars and 691 who qualified as Distinguished College Scholars. All the honorees will receive honors cords they can wear at spring commencement ceremonies in May. The honors cords are provided by the University Co-op. Distinguished College Scholars will be presented with medallions on stage by their academic deans as a part of the ceremony.
In recognition of these students, the Tower will be lit orange on Saturday, April 16. More information about Honors Day is available online, at: http://www.utexas.edu/events/honorsday/program.html.
Pulitzer Prize-winning author David M. Oshinsky will be the speaker at the celebration. Oshinsky holds the Jack S. Blanton Sr. Chair in History and is a Distinguished Teaching Professor. In 2006, Oshinsky received the Pulitzer Prize for History and the Hoover Presidential Book Award for “Polio: An American Story.” The book details America’s battle with polio and intense search for a cure.
Remarks by the honor students’ representative will be by Genevieve L. Allen, a junior biology major in the College of Natural Sciences who is a 2011 Harry S. Truman Scholar and is in the Dean’s Scholars Honors Program. Matthew Ramirez, a senior English major from the College of Liberal Arts and a Dean’s Distinguished Graduate, will be the marshal for the students during the honors processional.
Introduced in 1948, Honors Day is a pre-Commencement event for graduating seniors and the occasion when students who have achieved academic excellence are honored by academic officers and deans, members of the faculty and student leaders. The Honors Day Convocation includes a procession of student honorees, presentation of medallions to Distinguished College Scholars by academic deans, inspirational messages and celebratory music.
The university designates outstanding students as College Scholars and Distinguished College Scholars on the basis of criteria approved by the Faculty Council. Students who are eligible for recognition receive invitations to the Honors Day Convocation.
Complimentary parking for the university-wide Honors Day Ceremony will be available in the Trinity Garage at the corner of Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard and Trinity Street. The primary entrance for the Trinity Garage is from Trinity Street on the west side of the structure. Guests should take their ticket to the attendants where applicable and tell them that they are attending an Honors Day program. The parking garage attendant will validate parking at no cost to Honors Day guests. People with disabilities involving mobility may utilize designated spaces in the parking lots adjacent to the Frank Erwin Center (Lot 118 to the north, and Lot 108 to the south).
