More than 1,300 UNL degrees to be awarded Dec. 18-19

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln's December commencement exercises will be Dec. 18 and 19 at Pinnacle Bank Arena.

The arena, at 400 Pinnacle Arena Drive, will host a ceremony for students earning graduate and professional degrees at 3 p.m. Dec. 18 and one for those earning bachelor's degrees at 9:30 a.m. Dec. 19.

More than 1,300 degrees will be awarded. The ceremonies at Pinnacle Bank Arena will be live streamed at http://www.unl.edu.

Tammy Beck, associate dean of graduate programs and external engagement, and associate professor of management in the College of Business Administration, will deliver the address at the Dec. 18 graduate and professional degrees ceremonies. M. Ishaq Nadiri, Jay Gould Professor of Economics at New York University, will deliver the address at the undergraduate commencement on Dec. 19. He will also receive an honorary doctor of humane letters degree.

The College of Law will conduct a separate commencement ceremony at 1 p.m. Dec. 18 in Hamann Auditorium of Ross McCollum Hall, East Campus Loop and Fair Street. Deryl Hamann, of counsel at Omaha law firm Baird Holm and chairman and director of Spectrum Financial Services, will address the law graduates.

Beck joined the UNL faculty in July. She received her accounting degree from the University of Texas, her master of business administration from the University of Houston and her doctoral degree in organization and management studies from the University of Texas at San Antonio. She worked for 17 years in public accounting and industry before entering academia, where she devotes her research to organizational resilience, the factors supporting effective interorganizational collaboration and strategic leadership. The title of her commencement address is "Lessons from Servant Leadership."

Nadiri was chairman of the economics department at NYU from 1972-1978. He also founded and was the first director of the C.V. Starr Center for Applied Economics. A longstanding member of the National Bureau of Economic Research, his main research topics are productivity analysis, economics of research and development and technical change, telecommunications economics and investment modeling and growth.

He has published more than 100 articles and working papers on technical economic issues and has been on various academic councils. Nadiri has been a member of The Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., and is a longtime member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He has been a consultant to several major cooperations in the United States, Canada, Latin America and the Middle East, and an adviser to several governments. He also has been a consultant to several U.N. agencies.

From 2005-2008, Nadiri was the senior economic adviser to the president of Afghanistan. He also was chairman of the Afghanistan National Development Strategy and co-chair of the Joint-Monitoring and Coordination Board, a high-level U.N.-Afghanistan sponsored council with membership of 40 nations and Afghanistan. As senior economic adviser, Nadiri was responsible for the preparation and publication of many of the most important documents relating to development of Afghanistan. He organized and chaired 12 international conferences in New York, Tokyo, Berlin, Paris, Pakistan, India and several other countries. He helped raise $32 billion in pledges of international support for the development of Afghanistan at conferences in London and Paris.

In recent years, his research efforts have extended to economic responses to terrorism, post-conflict reconstruction and economies of failed states. Among other topics, he is working on an integrated econometric model of economic growth and political developments. The title of his commencement address is "Some Challenges and Opportunities of Globalization."

The ceremonies are free and open to the public and no tickets are required. Because of security concerns, parcels, handbags and camera bags will be subject to search. There will be open seating in all areas except the arena floor, which will be reserved for graduates, faculty and dignitaries. Handicapped seating will be on the concourse level. Open captioning for people with hearing impairment will be provided through the ribbon screens at the corners of the arena concourse level. For Pinnacle Bank Arena seating charts, go to http://www.pinnaclebankarena.com/tickets/seating.html.

A drop-off area for mobility-restricted guests will be available on the south side of the post office building, 700 R St., directly east of Pinnacle Bank Arena.

Parking, including handicapped parking, is available in garages south of the arena and in the Festival Space parking area off Sun Valley Boulevard. The Festival Space parking area is accessible to the arena via a pedestrian bridge. Limited handicapped parking is available at Gate 4 on the north side of the arena off Pinnacle Arena Drive.

Parking maps are available at http://www.pinnaclebankarena.com/visit.

Guest services and first aid will be on Level 3 at Gate 112.

For more information, visit http://commencement.unl.edu.