Commencement Symposia

Commencement weekend 1970 will include a new feature, the final Senior Symposia of the year. Planned for Saturday, June 13, the Symposia program will emphasize "the pursuit of peace beyond Vietnam," according to Theodore McConnell '70, chairman. The panel discussions and lectures are an attempt, he said, to "give Commencement more substance than it has had in the past." Impetus for the innovation in Commencement programing was provided by former President Dickey in the form of a suggestion to the Symposia committee.

Guest speakers for the occasion will include U.S. Senator George McGovern from South Dakota; Charles Bolte '41, Vice-President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; David Sills '42, Demographic Director of the Population Council; Richard Falk, Professor of International Law at Princeton University; and possibly Barry Commoner, Director of the Center for the Biology of Natural Systems at Washington University and an adviser on environment to President Nixon.

Two sessions are planned for Saturday. In the morning Senator McGovern will serve as chairman of the panel in a discussion open to the public. Later that afternoon a student-faculty panel will sit opposite the guests and further pursue the questions dealt with by the Symposia forum. At the conclusion of the day McGovern will deliver a summation of his impressions and attitudes.

A committee of twelve students and seven faculty members was formed last winter to arrange this Commencement program. The group is receiving financial support from the Bicentennial Planning Committee in preparing the Symposia, which to some extent are a substitute for an earlier plan to hold an academic convocation to wind up the Bicentennial Year.