WTNH News Channel 8 / News / 1999

	Graduating class at UConn marked by bookend championships (Storrs-AP) _ The cramming and long nights of poring over books for final exams officially ended Saturday for the 5,400 graduates at the University of Connecticut, and it was time for these words of wisdom: Read more. Historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning author David McCullough imparted that advice to the graduates at the 116th graduation. "Read for pleasure, read what you like to read, read to your heart's content," he said told a packed Gampel Pavilion audience. "One book usually leads to another." McCullough, the host of the PBS television show, "The American Experience," has narrated several documentaries, including the acclaimed "The Civil War." He earned his Pulitzer for "Truman," his 1992 biography of President Harry S. Truman. A Yale University graduate and Pittsburgh native, McCullough, 66, received an honorary doctorate during the ceremony. In this age of information, just gathering data is not enough, he said. "Times of great change can be times of extreme stress, but they are also times when we can learn the most," he said. "We need, as never before, the capacity to think, and to think with the heart as well as the mind. "If information were learning, you could become educated by memorizing the World Almanac. If you did memorize the World Almanac, you wouldn't be educated, you would be weird." Jean Marie Keevins was just plain nervous. "When I was a freshman I was full of confidence, now I am a nervous wreck," said Keevins, of Hicksville, N.Y. The 21-year-old theater studies major received her diploma in the morning ceremony and was upset her roomate would be graduating in the afternoon affair. To get her through, she made a puppet in the likeness of her roommate and toted throughout the ceremony. Roger Gelfenbien, chairman of the UConn Board of Trustees, reminded the graduates they came in with a champion and are going out on top, as well. Their freshman year saw the UConn women's basketball team win the national championship. The men beat Duke in March to win the title. Graduating members of the champion team this year were co-captains Ricky Moore and Rashamel Jones and reserve forward Antric Klaiber. The ceremony took on a somber tone when Gelfenbien called for a moment of silence to remember Mario J. Pinho, of Wethersfield, a member of the graduating class who died in a car accident earlier this week. Several opponents of a plan to build an animal vaccine research center on Horsebarn Hill held a peaceful protest outside Gampel before and after the ceremonies. Today's News Page. WTNH Home Page. ©1999 WTNH/WTNH-DT A LIN station.

Graduating class at UConn marked by bookend championships
(Storrs-AP) _ The cramming and long nights of poring over books for final exams officially ended Saturday for the 5,400 graduates at the University of Connecticut, and it was time for these words of wisdom: Read more.

Historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning author David McCullough imparted that advice to the graduates at the 116th graduation.

"Read for pleasure, read what you like to read, read to your heart's content," he said told a packed Gampel Pavilion audience. "One book usually leads to another."

McCullough, the host of the PBS television show, "The American Experience," has narrated several documentaries, including the acclaimed "The Civil War." He earned his Pulitzer for "Truman," his 1992 biography of President Harry S. Truman. A Yale University graduate and Pittsburgh native, McCullough, 66, received an honorary doctorate during the ceremony.

In this age of information, just gathering data is not enough, he said.

"Times of great change can be times of extreme stress, but they are also times when we can learn the most," he said. "We need, as never before, the capacity to think, and to think with the heart as well as the mind.

"If information were learning, you could become educated by memorizing the World Almanac. If you did memorize the World Almanac, you wouldn't be educated, you would be weird."

Jean Marie Keevins was just plain nervous.

"When I was a freshman I was full of confidence, now I am a nervous wreck," said Keevins, of Hicksville, N.Y.

The 21-year-old theater studies major received her diploma in the morning ceremony and was upset her roomate would be graduating in the afternoon affair. To get her through, she made a puppet in the likeness of her roommate and toted throughout the ceremony.

Roger Gelfenbien, chairman of the UConn Board of Trustees, reminded the graduates they came in with a champion and are going out on top, as well. Their freshman year saw the UConn women's basketball team win the national championship. The men beat Duke in March to win the title. Graduating members of the champion team this year were co-captains Ricky Moore and Rashamel Jones and reserve forward Antric Klaiber.

The ceremony took on a somber tone when Gelfenbien called for a moment of silence to remember Mario J. Pinho, of Wethersfield, a member of the graduating class who died in a car accident earlier this week.

Several opponents of a plan to build an animal vaccine research center on Horsebarn Hill held a peaceful protest outside Gampel before and after the ceremonies.

Today's News Page.

WTNH Home Page.