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President Pusey will welcome 1091 Harvard seniors into the fellowship of educated men this morning at the University's 314th Commencement exercises in Tercentenary Theatre. Another 2581 will receive graduate degrees and be welcomed into the fellowship of the super-educated.
A crowd of 15,000 is expected to attend the traditional ceremony; the weather should be fair and cool, preserving the tradition that rain never falls on a Harvard Commencement.
The ceremonies will open at 9:30 a.m., as the procession marches from the Old Yard to Tercentenary Theatre, with the University band leading the way. The marchers will be led by the University Marshal, J. Hampden Robb '21.
The traditional order of march will be followed, with the sheriffs of Middlesex and Suffolk Counties marching after the University Marshal, and followed in turn by the President and Fellows, the Board of Overseers, Gov. John A. Volpe, and then the Faculty and degree candidates.
Others have to wait for lower places in the line of march. Nonentities like "United States Senators and Representatives in Congress" are twentieth in the order of precedence, following "Trustees of the Charity of Edward Hopkins and the Loan Fund" and "The Ministers of the Six Towns of the Bay Colony."
The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences will award the most degrees after the College, 659. The School of Business Administration will award 653, Law, 556, Education, 363, Medicine, 132, Design, 76, Public Health, 68, Public Administration, 56, Divinity, 31, and Dental Medicine, 8.
Twenty Bachelor of Arts in Extension Studies degrees will also be conferred, and one lonely Bachelor of Science will also emerge from the ceremonies.
Of the college's graduates, 67 per cent received honors, the highest percentage ever. 133 students were awarded the degree cum laude in general studies, 342 cum laude in a field, 222 magna cum laude, 13 magna cum laude with highest honors, and 25 summa cum laude.
The alumni procession will be led by the Chief Marshal, Douglas Mercer '40, partner in the Boston law firm of Ropes and Gray. The alumni, class by class, beginning with the oldest, march past the dignitaries assembled on the steps of Widener.
Three students, David H. Evans Jr. '65 of Adams House and North Andover; Cheng-Teik Goh '65, of Dudley House and Butterworth, Malaysia; and Arthur L. Levin '61, 3M, will deliver addresses. Evans' will be the traditional Latin Part.
The last event on the program is the awarding of honorary degrees to persons who have distinguished themselves for contributions to the world, the country, or Harvard. The names of the degree recipients are never revealed before Commencement Day.
At noon the undergraduates and alumni go their separate ways, the undergraduates to the Houses, where they actually receive their degrees from the Masters in separate House ceremonies. President Pusey awards degrees only to the marshals of the class.
Graduates assemble in the afternoon for the annual meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association, which will be addressed by President Pusey and an honorary degree recipient.
The meeting will assemble after a parade from the Old Yard to Tercentenary Theatre beginning at 1:30 p.m. Frederick A. O. Schwartz '24, president of the association, will preside at the meeting. Mr. Schwarts will announce the results of the election of the Directors of the Alumni Association and the members of the Board of Overseers.
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