The University of Nebraska-Lincoln's December commencement exercises will be Dec. 16 and 17 at Pinnacle Bank Arena, 400 Pinnacle Arena Drive.
The arena will host a ceremony for students earning graduate and professional degrees at 3 p.m. Dec. 16 and one for those earning bachelor's degrees at 9:30 a.m. Dec. 17. About 1,400 degrees will be awarded.
Sebastian Elbaum, Bessey Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at Nebraska, will deliver the address at the graduate and professional degrees ceremonies. Chuck Hagel, former U.S. senator and former secretary of defense, will give the address at the undergraduate commencement.
Elbaum's research aims to improve system dependability through testing, monitoring and analysis. His teaching focuses on instilling cost-effective software development principles. He has earned a National Science Foundation Career Award, IBM Innovation Award, Google Faculty Research Award and five Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Software Engineering Distinguished Paper Awards. Elbaum's current development and analysis work is focused on robotic systems, specifically unmanned aircraft systems. He is the co-founder of two laboratories at Nebraska – the E2 Software Engineering Lab and the NIMBUS Lab – and the End Users Shaping Effective Software Consortium. He received a systems engineering degree from the Catholic University of Cordoba in Argentina and a doctoral degree from the University of Idaho. He also has been a research scientist or fellow at Google, CNR in Pisa, Italy, and University College London.
Hagel was a U.S. senator for Nebraska from 1997 to 2009, chair of the Intelligence Oversight Board from 2009 to 2013 and secretary of defense from 2013 to 2015. A Nebraska native, he earned a bachelor's degree in history from the University of Nebraska at Omaha in 1971. He volunteered to serve in the Vietnam War, earning two Purple Hearts as an infantry squad leader. After an initial stint in politics, including working for Ronald Reagan's presidential campaign, he became co-founder of Vanguard Cellular, a mobile phone service; president of the McCarthy Group, an investment banking firm; and CEO of American Information Systems Inc., a computerized voting machine manufacturer. Hagel has been a professor in Georgetown University's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service and chairman of the Atlantic Council, and has served on numerous boards of directors, including that of Chevron Corporation. He earned a Horatio Alger Award for Distinguished Americans in 2001 and the Millard Tydings Award for Courage and Leadership in American Politics in 2008.
Chancellor Ronnie Green will preside over the commencement ceremonies.
No tickets are required for the ceremonies. The public may sit in any non-reserved seats other than on the main floor, which is set for graduates, faculty and dignitaries. Handicap seating is available on the concourse level in Sections 106, 107, 112, 114, 117 and 118. Beverage stands will be open. 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, click here.
Guest services and first aid will be on Level 3 at Gate 112.
Paid parking, including handicap parking, is available in Haymarket area garages operated by the city of Lincoln and on the street. Parking in the Red 1 Garage, 555 R St. at $3 per vehicle, can be reserved and paid in advance through the City of Lincoln website here. Pinnacle Bank Arena's north lobby entrance will not be open for commencement.
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, although the area is expected to be highly congested.
Parking maps are available here.
Graduating students are to check in at 2 p.m. for the Dec. 16 ceremony and 8 a.m. for the Dec. 17 ceremony. Graduates and their guests are asked to stay for the entire ceremony. The ceremony will be live-streamed here and carried live on Lincoln Time Warner Cable Education Access Channel 80 (with cable box) or Channel 71.16 (without cable box).
Nebraska Today
More details at: http://news.unl.edu/