The UTD Mercury

Media Credit: Barrett DeCutler Receiving his doctorate in public policy and political economy, Wei Lin (center) is hooded by Lloyd J. Dumas (left) and Austin Cunningham.

UTD hosted the school's first ever doctoral hooding ceremony Aug. 16 in the Conference Center, after changes in the academic calendar prompted administrators to cancel summer commencement, according to Michael Coleman, undergraduate studies dean.

Most universities bestow a hood, a symbolic garment, on doctoral degree recipients at commencement to mark their transition from student to peer, said Graduate Studies Dean Austin Cunningham.

Degree recipients received their diplomas and obtained their hoods in front of faculty, family and friends. Out of the approximately 120-130 doctorates awarded by UTD each year, only 42 received their degrees this summer, said Cunningham, who presided over the ceremony along with President David Daniel and Executive Vice President and Provost Hobson Wildenthal.

Daniel and Cunningham gave introductions, and

Raymond P. Lutz gave the address. Lutz, who earned his Ph.D. in industrial engineering from Iowa State University, was appointed the first dean of the School of Management at UTD in 1975 and also served as Executive Dean of Graduate Studies and Research.

In his speech, Lutz told the graduates, "You've successfully overcome the facing of the unknown." He said, "the entire world now begs for constructive leadership." He also quoted authors H.G. Wells and J.K. Rowling.

Six out of UTD's seven schools awarded degrees, and the hoods themselves were bestowed by Cunningham and another academic, usually either the dean of the graduate's school or their Ph.D. supervisor.

Dr. Cunningham said that students must be entirely finished with the requirements of their degree to be hooded but that, once they receive the hood, it will go with them wherever they go.

Dr. Daniel said of the ceremony, "I thought it went very well." He said it was "a little more personal" than traditional commencement ceremonies, and he would like to hold them both concurrently, so that new doctors would receive their diplomas at commencement and their hoods separately.

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