Athens, Ga. – U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates will be the speaker for the University of Georgia’s fall undergraduate commencement exercises Dec. 18 at 9:30 a.m. in UGA’s Stegeman Coliseum.
Professor Dorinda Dallmeyer, former associate director of the University of Georgia Dean Rusk Center - International, Comparative and Graduate Legal Studies and director of the Environmental Ethics Certificate Program, will speak at commencement for graduate students at 2:30 p.m. in Stegeman Coliseum. The Dean Rusk Center is part of UGA's School of Law and the Environmental Ethics Certificate Program is part of UGA's College of Environment and Design.
The ceremonies will be for students who complete degree requirements at the end of the fall 2009 semester. The number of students eligible to receive degrees will not be known until the conclusion of final exams on Dec. 16. As announced previously, tickets will be required for attendance at the undergraduate ceremony, with six being provided to each graduating student. Both ceremonies will be broadcast live on channel 15 of the university and Charter cable systems and broadcast in the Tate Student Center Theater and Masters Hall in the Georgia Center for Continuing Education Conference Center and Hotel. It will be streamed live at www.uga.edu also.
Gates was sworn in on Dec. 18, 2006, as the 22nd secretary of defense. Gates is the only secretary of defense in U.S. history to be asked to remain in that office by a newly elected president. Before entering his present post, Gates was the president of Texas A&M University, the nation’s seventh largest university. Prior to assuming the Texas A&M presidency, on Aug. 1, 2002, he served as interim dean of the George Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M from 1999 to 2001.
“It is a tremendous honor for a speaker of such national prominence, and one who holds a position of significant national importance at this time in America’s history, to accept the invitation to speak at UGA’s graduation,” said UGA President Michael F. Adams.“I have known Bob Gates for many years and consider him both a close colleague and good friend.I very much look forward to his address in December.”
Gates joined the Central Intelligence Agency in 1966 and spent nearly 27 years as an intelligence professional, serving six presidents. During that period, he spent nearly nine years at the National Security Council in the White House, serving four presidents of both political parties.
Gates served as director of Central Intelligence from 1991 until 1993. He is the only career officer in the CIA’s history to rise from entry-level employee to director. He served as deputy director of Central Intelligence from 1986 until 1989 and as assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser at the White House from Jan. 20, 1989, until Nov. 6, 1991, for President George H.W. Bush.
Gates has been awarded the National Security Medal, the Presidential Citizens Medal, has twice received the National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medal, and has three times received the CIA’s highest award, the Distinguished Intelligence Medal.
He is the author of the memoir, From the Shadows: The Ultimate Insiders Story of Five Presidents and How They Won the Cold War, published in 1996.
Until becoming secretary of defense, Gates served as chairman of the Independent Trustees of The Fidelity Funds, the nation’s largest mutual fund company, and on the board of directors of NACCO Industries, Inc., Brinker International, Inc. and Parker Drilling Company, Inc.
Gates has served on the board of directors and executive committee of the American Council on Education, the board of directors of the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges, and the National Executive Board of the Boy Scouts of America. He has also been president of the National Eagle Scout Association.
A native of Kansas, Gates received his bachelor’s degree in European history from the College of William and Mary, his master’s degree in history from Indiana University and his doctorate in Russian and Soviet history from Georgetown University. In 1967, he was commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force and served as an intelligence officer at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri.
A native of Macon, Dallmeyer began her college career at UGA where she received the B. S. degree in geology magna cum laude, with general honors, and with honors in geology in 1973.She was a National Merit Scholar and was named the outstanding senior in geology.She also twirled with the University of Georgia Redcoat Band as a member of the Fabulous Georgettes from 1970-1975.
In 1977, Dallmeyer received an M.S. degree in geology for her research on the effects of climate change on deep-sea benthic organisms.She then worked with UGA professor James W. Porter for over three years, conducting research in tropical marine biology and ecology in Jamaica and off the Georgia coast. Her coral reef research culminated with a week-long saturation dive in the underwater habitat HYDROLAB in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
To pursue her interest in conservation law and policy, Dallmeyer returned to the classroom in 1981, this time at the UGA School of Law. She received her J. D. degree cum laude in 1984.She served as executive articles editor for the Georgia Law Review and was named the Woman of the Year in 1984 by the Georgia Association of Women Lawyers. Immediately after graduation from law school, she joined the staff of Dean Rusk Center for International Law.Over the course of her 21-year career there, her primary research areas crossed a broad spectrum of international law, with a particular emphasis on the role of negotiation and dispute resolution.
Her research has been supported by grants from the MacArthur Foundation, the U.S. Institute of Peace, the Ford Foundation, the Canadian Embassy, the National Science Foundation, and the Hewlett Foundation. Among other titles, Dallmeyer has edited books on women in international law, civilian uses of space, globalization and environmental ethics, NAFTA, the negotiation of maritime boundary disputes, and marine environmental ethics. In 2005, she was appointed by the Ocean Studies Board of the National Research Council to a nine-member committee evaluating the impact of fisheries on coastal and ocean ecosystems. She also has been co-author on articles published in the internationally acclaimed scientific journals Nature and Science. In addition to her work in print, she served as executive producer for the international law radio series “The Individual in a Global Society,” which received the Bronze World Medal at the 1999 New York Radio Festival.
Dallmeyer is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a past vice-president of the American Society of International Law. From 1992-2002, she was a member of the board of directors for the Educational Foundation for Nuclear Science, best known as wardens of the so-called “Doomsday Clock.” She has been a member of the State Bar of Georgia since 1984.
In 2005, she received the Phillip Reed Memorial Award for Outstanding Writing about the Southern Environment in recognition of her edited anthology “Elemental South.” That same year she retired from full-time employment to devote more time to her creative writing and to directing UGA’s Environmental Ethics Certificate Program. Her next book, Bartram’s Living Legacy: the Travels and the Nature of the South, will be published by Mercer University Press in fall 2010.
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