Commencement speakers chosen

By CARA SEXTON

Last week, the University of Mary Washington announced the speakers for both of the graduate and undergraduate 2013 commencement ceremonies. Dr. William “Bill” Cleveland Bosher Jr. and Steve Pemberton will speak at those respective ceremonies.

Bosher, who is a public policy expert and former Virginia superintendent of education, will be the guest speaker for the graduate address on Friday, May 10 at 7:30 p.m. in the William M. Anderson Center.

Bosher has been a teacher, principal, state director, local superintendent of two districts, as well as the superintendent of public instruction for the commonwealth of Virginia. Currently, he serves as professor of public policy and education at Virginia Commonwealth University and is the executive director of the Commonwealth Educational Policy Institute.

The other speaker, Steve Pemberton, business executive, motivational speaker and author, will deliver the undergraduate commencement address on Saturday, May 11 at 9 a.m. on Ball Circle.

Pemberton served as divisional vice president and chief diversity officer at the Walgreen Company and, in addition, has spent more than five years in diversity and inclusion at monster.com and 10 years in admissions at Boston College.

Though both speakers are acclaimed in their achievements, not all seniors are knowledgeable or enthusiastic about the speaker choices.

“I have no idea who those people are, so I think it would have been nice to get more nationally known people, but I know the college probably can’t afford them,” said senior William Roark. “They [have the potential] to be good speakers, I just don’t know because I am unfamiliar with them.”