May 2005 Commencement Honors Graduates

Nearly 800 students were conferred their degrees at The University of Tampa’s spring 2005 Commencement at the St. Pete Times Forum on May 7.

Although grades will not become official until later in the summer, 117 students were conferred degrees with honors. The list includes 70 cum laude (GPA 3.5 or higher, but lower 3.75), 45 magna cum laude (GPA 3.75 or higher, but lower 4.0), and two summa cum laude (perfect 4.0 GPA) recipients. The summa cum laude graduates are Angela Sia of Covington, KY, and Helen Wright of Tyler, TX. Additionally, three graduate students were conferred degrees with highest honors (perfect 4.0), and three others with honors (at least 3.9, but less than 4.0).

While the total numbers of graduates and degrees include both May and August graduates, they do not reflect August honors graduates. All 117 honorees in the spring 2005 Commencement were from among the May graduates. The figures reflect a dramatic increase in magna cum laude candidates, which exceeded by more than a third the number who qualified for last year’s spring ceremony.

The speaker at this year’s event was James E. Hattaway Jr., associate director of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, where he has worked since 1977 and has won awards for his leadership.

Remaining in Tampa after completing his Army duties at MacDill Air Force Base (where he served in the United States Readiness Command), Hattaway enrolled at UT. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Business Management in 1973, and subsequently earned a Master of Science in Acquisition Management from the Florida Institute of Technology in 1979.