Spring Commencement 2024: The Details

Christine Grady, a nurse-bioethicist and chief of bioethics at the National Institutes of Health, will give the commencement address to 177 graduates at the School of Nursing and Health Professions ceremony at 6 p.m. May 17. Grady is married to Anthony Fauci, the chief medical adviser to the president during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) has the most graduates this commencement, with 609 undergraduates and 368 who are receiving graduate degrees.

The CAS undergraduate commencement will take place in two ceremonies on May 18, with humanities and science students at 9 a.m. and arts and social science students at 12 p.m.

Elizabeth A. Hausler, founder and CEO of Build Change, an organization that builds homes and schools that are disaster-resistant, is the honorary degree recipient and commencement speaker for the first CAS undergraduate commencement. Lloyd R. LaCuesta, a retired Bay Area broadcast journalist who was with KTVU, will receive an honorary degree and speak at the noon ceremony on May 18.

The CAS commencement for graduate students will be 3 p.m., also on May 18. The honorary degree recipient and speaker is Sr. Simone Campbell, SSS, leader of Nuns on the Bus, a Catholic advocacy group that travels the U.S. in a bus.

The School of Management (SOM) commencement will be 9 a.m. May 17, with 214 undergraduates receiving degrees. Honorary degree recipient Mary C. Daly, president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, will give the commencement address.

The SOM will award graduate degrees to 161 students at 12 p.m. May 17.  José A. Quiñonez, founder and CEO of Mission Asset Fund, a San Francisco-based nonprofit that supports peer-to-peer lending networks, will receive an honorary degree and give the commencement address.

Lindbergh Porter JD ’81, a San Francisco employment and class-action attorney, will receive an honorary degree and give the commencement address to 156 law graduates at the School of Law ceremony at 3 p.m. May 17.

The School of Education will award 304 master’s degrees and 38 doctoral degrees at its commencement at 6 p.m. May 16. Sr. Christina Heltsley, OP, prioress of the Dominican Sisters of Sinsinawa, will give the commencement address and receive an honorary degree.

The May 2024 graduates represent 44 states and 68 countries, and 618 are first in their families to graduate with a university degree.