Ken Burns, award-winning documentary filmmaker, and John E. Deasy, superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, will deliver the commencement addresses at Loyola Marymount University this weekend.
Burns will speak at the 100th annual undergraduate commencement, which takes place at 9:30 a.m. on Saturday, May 5. Deasy will address the graduate commencement, which takes place at 10 a.m. on Sunday, May 6. Both ceremonies will be held at Sunken Garden on the Westchester campus.
Burns, who has produced documentary films for PBS for more than 25 years, has won seven Emmy awards and twice been nominated for an Academy Award. His works include “The Civil War,” “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea,” “Baseball” and “Brooklyn Bridge.”
Deasy has been LAUSD superintendent for a year, after first serving as deputy superintendent of the school district, the nation’s second largest with more than 660,000 students. Prior to joining the Los Angeles Unified School District in August 2010, Deasy served as deputy director of education for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Lyn Lusi is receiving a posthumous honorary doctor of humane letters degree. Lusi, who died in March, was co-founder of the humanitarian organization HEAL Africa. In 2011 at LMU, she received the $1 million Opus Prize, which is given each year to an unsung hero working on persistent social problems.
Also receiving honorary doctor of humane letter degrees are Rosenia St. Onge, retired registrar, and John Page, professor of electrical engineering and computer science at LMU. Both are being recognized for 50 years of service to the university.
Deasy will receive a doctor of humane letters at the graduate commencement on Sunday.
More than 1,300 Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Arts degrees will be conferred at the Saturday ceremony, and more than 600 graduate degrees will be conferred on Sunday.