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CORVALLIS - Oregon State University will hold its 134th commencement on Sunday, June 15, during two separate ceremonies in Reser Stadium on campus. Students earning graduate degrees will receive their diplomas from 9 to 10:30 a.m. The ceremony for undergraduate degrees runs from 2 to 4 p.m. and will be televised by Oregon Public Broadcasting. Approximately 3,700 students are graduating from the university this June, earning nearly 3,900 degrees.

OSU President Tim White will confer the degrees, with the help of academic deans.

The university will present two special honors. Astronaut Donald Pettit will receive via long distance OSU's Distinguished Service Award. He returned to Earth in May after six months on the International Space Station - an expedition that was extended for several weeks in the aftermath of the loss of the space shuttle Columbia. Pettit is unable to attend the ceremony personally because NASA restricts post-orbit flights for three months, but he will accept the award via live television or videotape.

OSU also will honor one of the nation's most recognized engineers, James Poirot, with an honorary doctorate. Poirot has served as chairman of the board of CH2M HILL and president of the American Society of Civil Engineers, and he is a member of the prestigious National Academy of Engineers. Both Pettit and Poirot are graduates of OSU's College of Engineering.

Among the 3,700 OSU degree candidates will be the first class of students receiving Doctor of Pharmacy degrees, and a national shortage of pharmacists is resulting in an excellent job market for these OSU graduates.

Another pioneering OSU student is Jon La Follett, who is receiving the university's first bachelor's degree in computational physics.

But no one will be as busy as Casey McCoy, who is receiving an OSU record five degrees - after already being commissioned the previous day as an Air Force ROTC lieutenant.

There are other compelling stories as well.

Two Army ROTC cadets from Madras, Ore., now married, will be commissioned on June 13 and receive their degrees two days later. Johnathon Whitecloud Courtney and April Courtney won't face separation anxiety, however, as both will be assigned to Colorado Springs.

A number of students are receiving OSU's popular international degree. One such student is Daniel VanderHave of Independence, formerly of The Netherlands, who spent a year studying in China and two terms doing an internship with an international trade organization in New Zealand. He speaks English, Dutch, Chinese and Spanish.

Another international degree recipient is Jeremy Field, from Prairie City, Ore., who did an internship with a cattle ranch in Argentina and wrote his thesis comparing beef marketing systems in the U.S. and Argentina. He is completing a master's degree in agricultural sciences.

For more information on OSU's commencement, visit the web at: http://oregonstate.edu/events/commencement/.