{"id":126679,"date":"2017-06-22T11:27:38","date_gmt":"2017-06-22T15:27:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?post_type=school-college-post&p=126679"},"modified":"2017-06-22T11:27:38","modified_gmt":"2017-06-22T15:27:38","slug":"graduates-lauded-2017-uconn-law-commencement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2017\/06\/graduates-lauded-2017-uconn-law-commencement\/","title":{"rendered":"Graduates Lauded at 2017 UConn Law Commencement"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Author and journalist Emily Bazelon delivered the keynote address to a celebratory crowd of graduates and their families on May 21, 2017, at the 94th commencement at UConn School of Law.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cGet to know people whose lives have been ensnared by crime, the victims and the perpetrators. Often they\u2019re not as different from each other as you might think, and also not really different from you and me, standing here today,\u201d said Bazelon, the Truman Capote Fellow for Creative Writing and Law at Yale Law School and a staff writer at the New York Times Magazine. \u201cIf you work with them, or better yet, get to know them as friends and neighbors, you\u2019ll widen your own lens of perception.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dean Timothy Fisher told the graduates that the world needs them. \u201cWhen you think about the best and worst places to live on Earth, what distinguishes them is whether the law is present, and whether the law is strong,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The audience roared with approval when Fisher quoted from J.K. Rowling\u2019s Harry Potter books, \u201cAs Dumbledore said to Harry, \u2018It is our choices that reveal who we are,\u2019\u201d he said. “You have shown us who you really are, and you make us so proud.\u201d<\/p>\n

More than 150 students<\/a> earned\u00a0juris doctor<\/em> degrees. Five students were recognized for dual degrees: Lara Marie Edmonds for a master\u2019s in social work, Brittany Kaplan for a master\u2019s in public administration, Cara Marie Passaro for a master\u2019s in public health, and Ahmed Galal and Izick Vizel for masters\u2019 of business administration.<\/p>\n

The graduates included the first three to complete the new LLM, or master of laws, degree in Intellectual Property and Information Governance. They joined more than 50 other LLM graduates <\/a>in the programs for Energy and Environmental Law, Human Rights and Social Justice, Insurance Law, and U.S. Legal Studies.<\/p>\n

The student speakers, chosen by their classmates, were Alyssa Medalla for the LLM graduates, Benedict Daigle for the JD Evening Division and Ahmed Galal for the JD Day Division. The graduates also chose Professor Richard Pomp, who served as the chief marshal for the ceremony, to receive the Perry Zirkel \u201976 Distinguished Teaching Award.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Author and journalist Emily Bazelon delivered the keynote address to a celebratory crowd of graduates and their families on May 21, 2017, at the 94th commencement at UConn School of Law. \u201cGet to know people whose lives have been ensnared by crime, the victims and the perpetrators. Often they\u2019re not as different from each other […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":115,"featured_media":126682,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1857],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2085],"class_list":["post-126679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-law"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-29 07:23:16","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/115"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/126682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126679"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=126679"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=126679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}