President Barack Obama has been tabbed as the commencement speaker at the University of California - Irvine this Spring.
According to a school announcement, the White House confirmed Obama's engagement Thursday. An advocate for higher education reforms, the President is likely a highly sought after commencement speaker.
The ceremony is set for Saturday June 14 in Angels Stadium of Anaheim. The ceremony will commemorate the 50th anniversary of President Lyndon B. Johnson's address from a giant, empty field that was to be the ground on which UC - Irvine was built.
"I have come to California to ask you to throw off your doubts about America," Johnson said in his address. "Help us demonstrate to the world that people of compassion and commitment can free their fellow citizens from the bonds of injustice, the prisons of poverty and the chains of ignorance."
The day before he spoke, Johnson' Great Society agenda, civil rights legislation, passed in the Senate. On June 14, Obama will speak to a diverse class of young men and women of which about half will be first-generation college graduates.
"We are thrilled that the President has accepted our invitation to deliver the keynote address at our commencement exercises this June," Chancellor Michael V. Drake said in the school's news release. "We will be commemorating the 50th anniversary of the groundbreaking and dedication ceremonies of our campus. We are proud of the progress we have made during our first half century, and are looking forward to even greater achievements in the years to come."
Obama was invited and encouraged to speak at this year's commencement with a letter from Drake, about 10,000 postcards from students, faculty and alumni and from a student-produced invitational video.
The ceremony will celebrate the graduation of undergraduate students, graduate students and professional studies students. Individual graduates will be recognized at school-based ceremonies on June 15 and 16 on the school's campus.
