PRINCESS ANNE, MD -- Friday’s spring 2012 commencement at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore was a memorable one for the history books.
With 560 people receiving degrees, the class of 2012 was the university’s largest in its storied, 125-year history. Graduates ranged in age from 20 to 74.
The youngest was Oluwasegun S. Akinola of Nigeria, who earned a Bachelor of Science degree in biology. James Kenneth MacIntosh Jr. of Fort Washington, Md. was the oldest, receiving a Master of Education in Career and Technology Education degree.
Seventeen people received ceremonial hoods signifying completion of years of work on a doctorate in Organizational Leadership, a terminal degree program now in its 10th year. One was Darlene L. Jackson-Bowen, whose husband, Corey, received his doctorate in the same field in December 2011.
A capacity crowd in the Hytche Athletic Center, and hundreds of others in satellite locations on campus watching a closed-circuit broadcast, saw and heard commencement speaker Charles F. Bolden Jr., the fourth African-American to fly into space and current Administrator of NASA, the nation’s space agency.
Bolden, actress Beverly Todd and Dr. Samuel Kojo Dapaah, chief technical advisor to the U.S. Agency for International Development in Ghana, received the UMES Presidential Medal in recognition of career accomplishments in their respective fields.
