A Graduation Celebration for Penn Arts & Sciences

The College of Arts & Sciences Graduation Ceremony for the Class of 2024 was held on May 19 at Franklin Field. The featured speaker, James “Jim” Johnson, C’74, L’77, is a member of the School of Arts and Sciences Board of Advisors and the inaugural chair of the College External Advisory Board.

Johnson served as General Counsel of Loop Capital Markets, LLC, an investment banking firm located in Chicago, from 2010 until his retirement in 2014. Prior to that, he served as Vice President, Corporate Secretary, and Assistant General Counsel of the Boeing Company from 1998 to 2009. Johnson earned a B.A. in history and a J.D. from Penn, and he returned in 2021 for a certificate in climate change from the College of Liberal & Professional Studies.

Student speaker Katie Volpert, C’24, majored in philosophy and political science and minored in survey research and data analytics. As president and captain of Penn Mock Trial, she won 15 outstanding attorney awards. After graduation, Volpert will work as a deputy clerk at the General District Court in Charlottesville, Virginia, before applying to law school.

Ceremonies for the Graduate Division and the School of Liberal & Professional Studies took place on the Friday and Saturday prior, with Dean Fluharty speaking at all three celebrations.

The Penn Arts & Sciences Graduate Division held its ceremony on May 17 in Irvine Auditorium, with Dorothy Roberts, George A. Weiss University Professor of Law and Sociology, as the featured speaker. Roberts, an inter-nationally acclaimed scholar, public intellectual, and social justice activist, is also founding director of the Penn Program on Race, Science, & Society. Student speakers for the Graduate Division Ceremony included Marielle Ong, GR’24 (Math), Caroline Hodge, GR’24 (Anthropology), and Daniel Morales-Armstrong, GR’24 (History and Africana Studies)

On May 18, the College of Liberal & Professional Studies celebrated its graduating class at the Kimmel Center. Michael Weisberg, Bess W. Heyman President’s Distinguished Professor and Chair of Philosophy at Penn, gave the address. Weisberg, a philosophy of science scholar, is also director of the Galápagos Education and Research Alliance, interim director of Perry World House, and a senior negotiator at United Nations Climate Conferences.