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Duke to Award 4,500 Degrees at Commencement

John Chambers, the chair and CEO of CISCO, will deliver the commencement address

Duke
University will award more than 4,500 undergraduate, graduate and
professional degrees during its annual commencement ceremony Sunday, May
15, in Wallace Wade Stadium.

Duke President Richard H. Brodhead
will preside over the 10 a.m. ceremony and John Chambers, the chair and
CEO of Cisco, will deliver the commencement address.

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The event will be webcast live on Duke's Ustream channel and on Duke Today. Twitter users can follow commencement and contribute to the discussion using the Twitter hashtag #dukegrad11.

The student speaker at commencement
is Duke Student Government President Michael Lefevre, who is graduating
with a bachelor's degree in public policy studies and a certificate in
energy and the environment. Lefevre was selected by a committee made up
of students, alumni, faculty and administrators.

Chambers also will receive an
honorary degree. Other honorary degree recipients are Rita Dove, an
English professor, author and former U.S. poet laureate; James B. Hunt
Jr., a former North Carolina governor and public education advocate;
Alan Page, an NFL Hall of Fame member, judge and education activist;
Lisa Randall, a professor of theoretical physics and a leading expert on
particle physics and cosmology; Eric Shinseki, secretary of the U.S.
Department of Veterans Affairs, former Army chief of staff and a Duke
graduate; and Tan Chorh Chuan, president of the National University of
Singapore and an international leader in biomedical sciences, public
health and higher education.

Aside from Sunday's commencement
ceremony, Duke's graduation weekend May 13-15 will be filled with
special events held by individual schools, departments and programs to
recognize the 2011 graduates.

About 14,000 people are expected to
visit the campus to attend the main commencement exercise and other
ceremonies, according to the Office of Special Events and University
Ceremonies, which oversees graduation weekend planning.

The Durham Convention & Visitors
Bureau estimates the economic impact of graduation weekend on Durham --
through sales of food, hotel rooms, retail items, gasoline, car rentals
and entertainment -- will be about $3.1 million, said Shelly Green, CEO
of the Durham Convention & Visitors Bureau.

"Duke's graduation weekend continues
to be an important event for Durham," Green said. "The economic impact
is very substantial, plus it's a great chance for Durham to open its
doors and provide a satisfying cultural experience to many visitors."

The bureau's website has a regularly updated "lodging hotline" -- http://www.dcvb-nc.com/vic/2011_Graduation.pdf (PDF) -- that allows visitors to see which hotels have available rooms during graduation weekend.

On Duke's campus, additional police
officers and event staff will assist with traffic and parking. Free
parking will be provided throughout campus on Friday, Saturday and
Sunday.

Nearly all campus lots, including
gated facilities, will be open, but some of the lots on the east side of
Wallace Wade Stadium will be restricted. Parking is recommended in the
lot on Frank Bassett Drive off Science Drive; the Science Drive visitors
lot between Highway 751 and Towerview Drive; the lot at the corner of
751 and Science Drive; the Blue Zone lots on the east side of the
stadium off Duke University Road; and Parking Garage IV, on Science
Drive near the Bryan Center.

On Sunday, Duke Transportation will
provide shuttle buses to Wallace Wade from area hotels, including the
Millennium, the Durham Marriott at the Civic Center, the Courtyard (Comfort Inn guests can walk across the street to take the shuttle) and
the Hilton (Quality Inn guests can walk across the parking lot to the
shuttle). The shuttle service will begin at 8 a.m. Sunday and run every
20 minutes until 1 p.m.

The Washington Duke Inn and Golf Club has its own shuttle service beginning at 7 a.m. It also will run until 1 p.m.

There will be accessible
transportation from the lots adjacent to Wallace Wade for guests using
wheelchairs and their families. Golf carts are available for transport
from the parking lots to the entrances of Wallace Wade for those with
mobility concerns.

There also will be campus bus service beginning from East Campus at 8 a.m.

Speakers at other ceremonies:

 
--At 10 a.m. Friday, Stephen L.
Ondra, co-chair of Health Information Technology for the White House
Office of Science and Technology Policy, will speak to The Fuqua School
of Business' inaugural Master of Management in Clinical Informatics
class, in the Kirby Reading Room. The ceremony is not open to the
public.

 -- At 6 p.m. Friday, Jud Linville,
CEO of Citi Cards, Citigroup, will speak to The Fuqua School of
Business' inaugural Master of Management Studies: Foundations of
Business class, at Cameron Indoor Stadium. The ceremony is not open to
the public.

 -- At 9 a.m. Saturday, Christiana
Figueres, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention
on Climate Change, will give the address at the Nicholas School of the
Environment's Recognition Ceremony, on the Levine Science Research
Center (LSRC) lawn. The ceremony is not open to the public.

-- At 9:30 a.m. Saturday, Michael
Lamach, the CEO of Ingersoll Rand, will offer
remarks to graduates of The Duke MBA -- Daytime and Ph.D. programs, at
Cameron Indoor Stadium. The ceremony is not open to the public.

 -- At. 10 a.m. Saturday, Duke alumnus
W. Stacy Rhodes, chief of staff for the U.S. Peace Corps, will offer
remarks at the Sanford School of Public Policy graduate student
ceremony. The ceremony is not open to the public.

-- At 2 p.m. Saturday, Michael
Lamach, the CEO of Ingersoll Rand, will address graduates of The Duke
MBA -- Cross Continent program, at Cameron Indoor Stadium. The ceremony
is not open to the public.

 -- At 5:30 p.m. Saturday, Martina
Lewis Bradford, deputy sergeant-at-arms for the U.S. Senate and a 1975
graduate of Duke Law, will address graduates at the Law School's hooding
ceremony, in Cameron Indoor Stadium. The ceremony is not open to the
public.

 -- At 6:30 p.m. Saturday, Ellen
Davis, Amos Ragan Kearns Distinguished Professor of Bible and Practical
Theology at Duke Divinity School, will deliver the 85th baccalaureate
service to Divinity School graduates, in Duke Chapel. The service is
open to the public and will be webcast live at http://www.chapel.duke.edu/media.html.

Degrees to be conferred:

Degrees will be awarded to about
1,582 undergraduates and 1,995 graduate and professional students who
are graduating this spring. An additional 944 students who graduated in
September or December 2010 are also invited to participate in Sunday's
commencement. The estimated degree breakdowns for the May graduates are
as follows:

Undergraduate degrees:

-- Trinity College of Arts and Sciences -- A.B. 781; B.S. 496;

-- Pratt School of Engineering -- B.S.E. 255;

-- Nursing -- B.S.N. 50.

Graduate and Professional degrees:

-- Duke Divinity School -- M.Div. 127; Th.M. 14; M.T.S. 20; Th.D. 4;

-- Fuqua School of Business -- M.B.A. 455; M.M.S. 104; MMCi 23;

-- Graduate School -- M.A. 49; M.S. 102; M.A.T. 1; Ph.D. 158;

-- School of Law -- J.D. 209; LL.M. 108; LL.M.L.E. 14; S.J.D. 1;

-- Nicholas School of the Environment -- M.E.M. 150; M.F. 4;

-- Pratt School of Engineering -- M.Eng.M. 72; M.Eng. 1;

-- Sanford School of Public Policy -- M.I.D.P. 22; M.P.P. 43;

-- School of Medicine -- M.H.S. 80; M.H.S.-CR 20; M.H.S.-CL 1; M.D. 99; D.P.T. 52;

-- School of Nursing -- M.S.N. 47; D.N.P. 15.

For more information on Duke's commencement weekend, visit web.duke.edu/commencement.