Joe Butler, University organist, will play for the processional, Rev. Angela Kaufman will deliver the invocation and graduating senior David Miller will sing the Baccalaureate hymn and Alma Mater.
Commencement remarks will be delivered by newsman Jim Lehrer, host of PBS NEWSHOUR on public television. The University will confer an Honorary Doctor of Letters degree on Lehrer during the ceremonies.
Lehrer’s contributions as both a journalist and a debate moderator have led many to recognize him with national service awards, including the Colonial Williamsburg Churchill Bell Award in 2011 and the Distinguished Service Award for the Advancement of American Public Discourse on Foreign Policy from the American Committees on Foreign Relations.
Born in Wichita, Kansas, in 1934, Jim Lehrer received an A.A. degree from Victoria College and a B.J. in 1956 from the University of Missouri before joining the Marine Corps. From 1959 to 1966, he was a reporter for The Dallas Morning News and then the Dallas Times-Herald. He was also a political columnist at the Times-Herald for several years and in 1968 became the city editor.
Lehrer’s newspaper career in North Texas led him to public television, first in Dallas, as KERA-TV’s executive director of public affairs, on-air host and editor of a nightly news program. He subsequently moved to Washington, DC, to serve as the public affairs coordinator for PBS. His wife, Kate Lehrer, is a TCU alumna.