Texas Woman's University to conduct Fall 2019 commencement

Dec. 10, 2019 — DENTON/DALLAS/HOUSTON — The Fall 2019 semester at Texas Woman’s University will draw to a close with commencement ceremonies scheduled Friday and Saturday, Dec. 13 and 14, on the university’s Denton campus, and Sunday, Dec. 15, in Houston.

The Denton ceremonies include candidates from TWU’s Dallas Center. Approximately 1,138 degrees will be awarded during the Denton ceremonies, which take place in the Kitty Magee Arena of Pioneer Hall, located on Bell Avenue. 

Denton ceremonies scheduled Friday, Feb. 13, are: 

• Ceremony 1 at 9 a.m., with guest speaker Richard Sheardy, Ph.D., Cornaro Professor and chair of the TWU Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
• Ceremony 2 at 1 p.m., with guest speaker Jessie Taylor-Yearwood, a faculty member in the Food and Hospitality Institute at El Centro College, and a TWU alumna

Denton ceremonies scheduled Saturday, Dec. 14, are: 

• Ceremony 3 at 9 a.m., with guest speaker Darren Stevens, assistant chief of police in the Frisco Police Department, and a TWU alumnus
• Ceremony 4 at 1 p.m., with guest speaker A. Tracie Brown, Ed.D., senior area superintendent with the Arlington Independent School District, as well as a TWU alumna

Bell Avenue will be closed to thru traffic during the ceremonies. See the commencement parking map for more information.

For more information on commencement, see the commencement schedule.

The Houston ceremony will take place at 1 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 15, in The Woodlands Waterway Marriott Hotel and Convention Center, 1601 Lake Robbins Drive. Texas Woman’s University alumna Anne Gill, Dr.P.H., assistant dean for interprofessional education, professor of pediatrics and a professor in the Center for Medical Ethics and Policy, Baylor College of Medicine, will deliver the commencement address. Approximately 241 degrees will be awarded during the Houston ceremony.

A number of the 1,635 students walking across stages in Denton and Houston this fall have remarkable stories of achievement:

• Paramita Basu will receive her doctorate of molecular biology during Ceremony 1. At TWU, Basu combine her passions of science and healing to identify non-opioid ways to treat pain, including through the use of an extract from the native Texas plant Euphorbia bicolor, also known as Snow on the Prairie. She worked on the project with mentors Camelia Maier, Ph.D., and Dayna Averitt, Ph.D. Their research eventually may help millions of people safely reduce their pain.
• Terry Wilson will receive his bachelor of science degree in kinesiology in sport management — the first graduate of this program at TWU — during Ceremony 2. Wilson, a U.S. Army veteran and Purple Heart recipient, maintained a 4.0 grade point average while earning his degree.
• Nicole Carroll will receive her Ph.D. in early childhood development and education during Ceremony 3. For her doctoral research, Carroll, a Type 1 diabetic, chose to focus on the mental health of children who also have received that life-altering diagnosis. She was able to gather actual study results that will help children dealing with Type 1 diabetes live lives full of purpose and hope. She will present results of her TWU project at the TypeOneNation Summit in February.
• Ryan Matthews will receive his bachelor of applied arts and sciences in business administration during Ceremony 3. At the age of 19, Ryan was wrongfully convicted of murder and spent five years on death row before being exonerated through DNA evidence in 2004. He and his family came to Texas after Hurricane Katrina ravaged their New Orleans home, and his mother and sister are now TWU students. 
• Tu Nguyen will receive her bachelor of science degree in nursing during Ceremony 4. Nguyen, who studied sociology in her native Vietnam, realized if she wanted to help more people, she’d need to become a nurse, and the best place to do so was the United States. She spent two semesters at Richland Community College, perfecting her English and fulfilling basic course requirements before transferring to TWU. She credits her professors with keeping her on course, for helping her fill out charts in an alphabet different from the one she’d been writing since she was a little girl, and for giving her encouragement. Since moving to the United States seven years ago, Nguyen has married and, in October, she became a U.S. citizen. After graduation, she’ll work as an operating room nurse at UT Southwestern Medical Center.
• Amy Alvarado will receive her MBA during the Houston ceremony. Alvarado overcame a divorce after 18 years of marriage, started a new job and raised two busy teenagers as a single mom, all while completing her graduate degree. During her first semester alone, she enrolled in three classes while finalizing divorce proceedings, purchasing a new home and car and working for a for-profit hospital. Through it all, she only made one B. She currently works as a revenue billing manager at MD Anderson and plans to continue working in the health care field and progressing in hospital revenue management.

 

Page last updated 4:08 PM, December 14, 2020