FAYETTEVILLE -- More than 4,000 students will walk during this spring's commencement for the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, and several notable speakers will address graduates, including an Olympic gold medalist who won a national championship while running for the Razorbacks.
Veronica Campbell Brown, who won three gold medals, three silver medals, and two bronze medals across five Olympic games competing for Jamaica, will speak and receive an honorary degree during the all-university commencement for graduate students Saturday at 8:30 a.m. in Bud Walton Arena, according to John Thomas, UA-Fayetteville director of media relations and core communication.
Campbell Brown, who graduated from the Sam M. Walton College of Business in 2006 with a degree in business administration, won the 200-meter sprint at the 2004 NCAA Indoor Championships, setting a new collegiate record and earning All-American accolades.
In 2007, she married Omar Brown, a fellow UA-Fayetteville alumnus and sprinter from Jamaica, and she's been inducted into the university's sports Hall of Honor and the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame, according to Thomas. She's an entrepreneur, motivational speaker, author, philanthropist, mother of two and former UNESCO ambassador who chairs the Veronica Campbell Brown Foundation, which she founded with the core mission of assisting young girls lacking the necessary resources to obtain a high school education.
Undergraduate students will be celebrated in various ceremonies Friday and Saturday, while law students will have their graduation May 20 at 2 p.m. at the Fayetteville Town Center event venue downtown. Free parking is available in any unrestricted parking lot on campus, and a map of parking areas can be found online at https://bit.ly/3pwUB8U.
Guests will not need tickets to attend, and all ceremonies will be streamed live on the university's YouTube channel, https://bit.ly/3LSV4tS, according to the university. Light concessions will be available in Bud Walton Arena, with guests allowed to bring water into the arena.
The J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences and Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food, and Life Sciences will celebrate Friday at 2 p.m. and 3:30 p.m., respectively, according to the university. The former will be in Bud Walton Arena, with the latter in Barnhill Arena.
Alex Alvarez, who is graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and International Studies with a 4.0 cumulative GPA -- and was a Rhodes Trust Scholarship Finalist -- will be the speaker for the Fulbright College commencement, according to the university. Last summer, she attended the Public Policy and International Affairs Junior Summer Institute at Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy and then received an Arkansas Division of Higher Education Student Undergraduate Research Fellowship.
On Saturday, the College of Engineering will have graduation at noon in Barnhill Arena, the Walton College of Business at 12:30 p.m. in Bud Walton Arena, the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design in Barnhill Arena at 3:30 p.m., and the College of Education and Health Professions in Bud Walton Arena at 5 p.m., according to the university.
Troy Alley Jr., a native of Pine Bluff, president of the Real Estate Division and chief operating officer of Con-Real LP -- a Texas company he co-founded with his brother -- and graduate of UA-Fayetteville, will be the speaker for the College of Engineering, according to Thomas.
Reginald J. Miller, vice president and Global Chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer for McDonald's, will do the honors for the College of Education and Health Professions, while Kelly Barnes, a retired partner at PwC where she served as Global and U.S. Health Industries Leader, and Brandon Bibby, an artist, activist, architect, and alumnus of the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design, will do likewise for the College of Business and Fay Jones School, respectively.
On the spot where one of his family's businesses stood, the Troy and Gladys Alley Information and Public Safety Center now provides a resource for the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff and the surrounding community, and the Alley Scholars program brings minority students from around the region together annually for networking and leadership training, according to UA-Fayetteville.
He founded the Engineering Career Awareness Program -- a recruitment and retention program for underrepresented engineering students -- at UA-Fayetteville, he received the Distinguished Alumni award from UA-Fayetteville's College of Engineering in 2008, and he's a member of the Arkansas Academy of Electrical Engineering, the College of Engineering Campaign Committee, and the Engineering Advisory Council.
Miller, a native Arkansan who has bachelor's and master's degrees in education from UA-Fayetteville, joined McDonald's in 2020 after serving in a similar role at VF Corporation, a worldwide footwear and apparel company, where he built the company's first diversity and inclusion strategy and transformed it into an award-winning program, according to the university. A veteran of the U.S. Army who served as a supply sergeant with deployments to Afghanistan and Uzbekistan, he has also worked in leadership roles with both Walmart and Tyson.
Barnes, now director of Fractyl Health, is a member of the executive advisory board for the Walton College of Business, according to Fractyl Health. She has a B.S. in business administration and an MSA in Accounting from UA-Fayetteville.
Raised in the plains of Arkansas, where the Delta meets the Ozarks, Bibby is the senior preservation architect for the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, the largest program in America "dedicated to preserving Black spaces and the contributions of African American sites of activism, achievement and resilience in the American landscape," according to the Fay Jones School.
His portfolio of past and ongoing work includes stewarding the preservation, design and interpretation of sites like the John and Alice Coltrane Home in Suffolk County, N.Y.; Langston Hughes House in Harlem; Robert's Temple Church of God in Christ in Chicago; and King's Chapel Memorial to Enslaved Persons in Boston.
Bibby, who graduated from the Fay Jones School in 2014 with a Bachelor of Architecture and was awarded the Alpha Rho Chi Bronze Medal, was a Space and Society Fellow and Senior Architect in the Public Memory and Memorials Lab at the 2022 American Institute of Architects Architecture Firm of the Year, MASS Design Group, according to the Fay Jones School. Bibby is a 2022 Ones To Watch Awardee and Scholar with the American Society of Interior Designers, and he was named a "New Influential" in the Arkansas Business publication's list of 20 in their 20s in 2019.
Thomas A. Mars, former executive vice president and chief administrative officer of Walmart and current owner of Mars Law Firm, will be the featured speaker for the law school's commencement. He received his Juris Doctor from UA-Fayetteville's law school in 1985, graduating top of his class and serving as editor-in-chief for the Arkansas Law Review.
"We are honored that our alumnus Tom Mars will serve as the law school commencement speaker," Cynthia Nance, dean of the School of Law, said in a release from the university. "Not only has he risen to the top of our profession, he has done so while addressing important issues of the day. I have no doubt his words will inspire our graduates to follow his example, achieve great things and make a positive impact on society."
An accomplished trial lawyer, he's also a nationally recognized advocate in collegiate sports and an experienced crisis consultant for companies, executives, and public officials who was appointed by then-Gov. Mike Huckabee in 1998 to serve as director of the Arkansas State Police, serving three years before returning to private practice, according to the law school.
He's received several awards for professional excellence, including the American Bar Association Spirit of Excellence Award, the Minority Corporate Counsel Association Diversity Award, the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association President's Award, and the National Association of Women Lawyers President's Award.
Though the exact number of graduates won't be official until final grades are in and confirmed by the registrar's office, the total number of students "walking" during commencement this semester is 4,374, with 1,009 in the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, 595 graduate students (99 doctoral), 384 in the College of Engineering, 300 in the Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food & Life Sciences, 1,243 in the College of Business, 117 in the Fay Jones School, 587 in the College of Education and Health Professions, and 117 in the law school, according to Thomas.
All bags will be checked for security purposes, so it is recommended that guests plan to arrive early to avoid a delay in reaching their seats, according to the university. No balloons, wrapped packages, or strollers are allowed in Bud Walton Arena or Barnhill Arena, although compact umbrellas are permitted should inclement weather be the order of the day -- the latest forecast calls for scattered thunderstorms with a 40% chance of rain Friday and scattered thunderstorms with a 50% chance of rain Saturday.
Nolan Richardson Drive, which runs directly off the south entrance of Bud Walton Arena, will be closed to thru-traffic during graduations Friday and Saturday, as it'll be used as a drop-off point for individuals with disabilities, but there won't be "all-day closings," Thomas said. Due to congestion around the ceremonies, there will likely be police officers assisting with traffic direction on the main roads nearby -- Stadium Drive and Razorback Road -- but those streets won't be closed.
More details on the ceremonies can be found online at https://registrar.uark.edu/graduation/commencement/spring-commencement.php
This year's commencement will be the first presided over by Charles Robinson as the official chancellor of the university, although he was interim chancellor for more than a year before the University of Arkansas System selected him as the university's next chancellor in November 2022. Next year's commencement is currently scheduled for May 10-11.