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Senior class president Alex Cooper views his time at Washington University in St. Louis as truly “transformative.” When he takes the podium during the 151st Commencement ceremony May 18, he will urge fellow graduating seniors to reflect back on their time at the university, paying special attention to the key relationships that have fostered growth.

Washington University’s 151st Commencement will begin at 8:30 a.m. Friday, May, 18, in Brooking Quadrangle. Mike Peters, the 1981 Pulitzer Prize winner for editorial cartooning and creator of the award-winning cartoon strip Mother Goose & Grimm, will deliver the 2012 Commencement address. The university will bestow academic degrees on more than 2,700 undergraduate, graduate and professional students and six individuals, including Peters and Gloria Steinem, will receive honorary degrees.

Commuters who normally drive near Washington University in the morning may want to consider an alternative route or take Metro  on Friday, May 18. Traffic around the university will be very heavy Friday morning due to the university’s annual Commencement ceremony, which begins at 8:30 a.m. Traffic backups should be anticipated on streets near the university, especially Forsyth, Big Bend, Forest Park Parkway and Skinker.

Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton will confer degrees at the 151st Commencement ceremony, which begins at 8:30 a.m. Friday, May 18, in Brookings Quadrangle on the Danforth Campus. The 2,760 candidates will receive 2,878 degrees, of which 1,450 are undergraduate and 1,428 are graduate and professional.

Due to the closure of Forsyth Boulevard and Throop Drive this summer for construction, the WUSTL Campus Circulator will follow a revised route on the Danforth Campus beginning Tuesday, May 22. 

A section of Throop Drive that runs in front of Eliot Hall on the north side of the Danforth Campus will close beginning Monday, May 28, for the construction of Knight and Bauer halls for the Olin Business School. Throop will remain closed to both vehicular and pedestrian traffic until construction is completed in early March 2014.

Marion G. Crain, JD, the Wiley B. Rutledge Professor of Law and a Faculty Fellow in the Office of the Provost at Washington University in St. Louis, has been named vice provost, announced Edward S. Macias, PhD, provost, executive vice chancellor for academic affairs and the Barbara and David Thomas Distinguished Professor in Arts & Sciences.

This year, for the first time, a free Student Services Professional Development Conference is being offered to the entire WUSTL staff. The response to past conferences has been overwhelmingly positive, and topics have broad appeal. Breakout sessions will focus on local, national and international university initiatives. The conference is Thursday, May 24.

The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates is the 2012-13 selection for the First Year Reading Program. The book focuses on two men with the same name who grew up in similar Baltimore neighborhoods, but ended up on much different paths. One is a convicted murderer serving a life sentence; the other is a decorated veteran and Rhodes Scholar. The book provides a shared intellectual experience for incoming students.

Adrian “Addie” Smith, the Record‘s Outstanding Graduate from the School of Law, has spent much of her life searching for just the right spot to focus her enthusiasm on building a brighter future for disadvantaged children. And she appears to have found it. After graduation May 18, she will become a lobbyist for Native American children.