Commencement Opening Ceremony May 14, 2016 Chicago, Illinois Illinois Institute of Technology 2016 Commencement Opening Ceremony The Fourteenth of May Two Thousand and Sixteen Ten in the morning Ed Glancy Field 31st Street and Michigan Avenue Chicago, Illinois elcome to IIT’s 147th Commencement Exercise. The university community extends cordial greetings to the families and friends who are gathered W here to celebrate the culmination of years of formal study. For 2,668 students, today’s ceremony officially recognizes their academic accomplishments during the 2015–16 academic year and inaugurates a new era in their lives. With a broad foundation of both intellectual capability and experiential learning that characterizes an IIT education, these graduates also take with them a sound understanding of contemporary society and its values as they join thousands of other IIT alumni. About Illinois Institute of Technology In 1890, when advanced education was often reserved for society’s elite, Chicago minister Frank Wakely Gunsaulus delivered what came to be known as the “Million Dollar Sermon” near the site Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) now occupies. Gunsaulus said that with a million dollars he would build a school where students of all backgrounds could prepare for meaningful roles in a changing industrial society. Philip Danforth Armour, a Chicago meatpacking industrialist and grain merchant, heard the sermon and came to share the minister’s vision, agreeing to finance the endeavor with the stipulation that Gunsaulus become the first president of Armour Institute. When Armour Institute opened in 1893, it offered professional courses in engineering, chemistry, architecture, and library science. IIT was created in 1940 by the merger of Armour Institute with Lewis Institute (est. 1895), a West Side college that offered liberal arts as well as science and engineering courses. The Institute of Design, founded in 1937, merged with IIT in 1949. 1 In 1969, IIT became one of the few technology-based universities with a law school when Chicago-Kent College of Law, founded in 1887, became a part of the university. Stuart School of Business was added in 1969 with a gift from the estate of Lewis Institute alumnus and Chicago financier Harold Leonard Stuart. Midwest College of Engineering, founded in 1967, joined the university in 1986, forming the nucleus for IIT’s west suburban campus. Today, Illinois Institute of Technology is a private, Ph.D.-granting university with programs in engineering, science, architecture, law, human sciences, design, business, and applied technology. More than 7,800 graduate and undergraduate students study here, coming from 50 states and from 100 countries. Scientists and engineers from IIT have made some of the century’s most important technological advances; IIT architects have shaped the skylines of cities worldwide; and Chicago-Kent College of Law alumni are impacting the legal system. About Illinois Institute of Technology, continued Three miles south of the Chicago Loop, IIT’s Mies Campus was designed by renowned architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in 1940, and IIT’s 19 Mies buildings are the highest concentration in the world. The American Institute of Architects designated Mies Campus as one of the 200 most important works of architecture in the country, and Mies’ S. R. Crown Hall, which houses the College of Architecture, was granted National Historic Landmark status in 2001. Continuing IIT’s tradition of cutting-edge design, the university added two new buildings in 2003—The McCormick Tribune Campus Center, designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Rem Koolhaas, and State Street Village Residence Hall, designed by Helmut Jahn, named one of the Ten Most Influential Living American Architects by the American Institute of Architects. IIT has four additional campuses. The Downtown Campus is home to Chicago-Kent College of Law and Stuart School of Business. 2 The Institute of Design is located in Chicago’s River North area. The Daniel F. and Ada L. Rice Campus in Wheaton, Illinois, offers graduate and undergraduate courses and houses the School of Applied Technology. The Moffett Campus, in Bedford Park, Illinois, is the home of the Institute for Food Safety and Health. IIT also has state-of-the- art distance learning programs. Academic Regalia Much of the American academic ceremonial apparel is derived from that worn at British universities, particularly Oxford University. When Oxford was granted a charter in 1241, its members wore clerical garb because of the close connection between the university and the church. Academic apparel for colleges and universities in America was first introduced at Williams College in 1887. The Intercollegiate Commission drafted the first uniform code in 1895. The bachelor’s gown is untrimmed, with long pointed sleeves, and is worn closed. The master’s gown has long, crescent-shaped sleeves and may be worn open or closed. The doctor’s gown has velvet facing down the front and three velvet bars on the bell-shaped sleeves. The velvet is either black or the color of the major field of study. For years, most gowns were black, but today most American institutions have followed the British custom of using red or college colors. The hood is the most important and distinctive feature of the 3 American system. It was originally intended as a head cover and shoulder cape. The color of the trim indicates the degree field; for example, purple is law, orange is engineering, lavender is architecture. The length of the hood and the width of the trim indicate the degree earned, the doctor’s hood being the longest and having the widest trim. The color or colors of the hood lining indicate the degree-granting institution. The Illinois Institute of Technology hood lining has the school colors, a single gray chevron on a scarlet field. Commencement Speaker S. Christopher Gladwin Founder of Cleversafe Chris Gladwin founded Cleversafe in 2004 with the mission to create and commercialize new technology to “store the world’s data.” To prepare to pursue this vision, Gladwin started with an engineering degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After graduation, he was a manager of corporate computing standards at Lockheed Martin, where he was a professional evaluator of computer products. He then switched to the vendor side of the business at Zenith Data Systems, where he created the first workgroup storage server. Gladwin next created and managed a number of successful new technology startups, including Cruise Technologies, the leading developer of thin-client tablet computers, and MusicNow, the first company to create digital-music subscription services. When starting his next company, Gladwin and the 4 Cleversafe team understood—years ahead of the market—the growing issues surrounding unstructured data and the inability of traditional technology solutions to accommodate the explosive growth of digital assets such as audio, video, and imaging. While located on the Illinois Tech campus and primarily using Illinois Tech graduates, Cleversafe developed advances in dispersed information technology and applied those to data storage to create the most reliable, cost-effective, secure solution with a limitless ability to scale. As a result of these new innovations, IEEE Spectrum placed Cleversafe’s patent portfolio as the 10th most powerful of any company in the world. Many of the largest data-storing organizations in the world are now using Cleversafe’s technology to meet their massive data-storage requirements, which led IDC MarketScape to rank Cleversafe as the largest vendor of object-based storage systems. Through Cleversafe’s many customers, most people in the U.S., U.K., and Japan are now utilizing Cleversafe as the storage for some of their cloud, enterprise, or personal data storage. In late 2015, IBM acquired Cleversafe, which positions the company to fully realize its original vision of creating the technology to store the world’s data. Gladwin is now developing new technologies and new companies to further the benefits of information technology in the global marketplace. Student Speaker Subarno Saha B.S./M.S. in Electrical Engineering Given Subarno Saha’s impressive academic accomplishments at Illinois Institute of Technology—a 3.5 grade point average, three years on the Dean’s List, and now the honor of having achieved both a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in electrical engineering in four years—one might think that he had little time to engage in extracurricular activities. Wrong. Saha knew the importance of having fun on campus and leading a well-rounded student life. After having arrived at IIT from his home in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Saha found fellowship in the Alpha Sigma Phi fraternity. He also sang on stage for the first time in his life as a member of the Crown Joules a cappella choral group, subsequently joining the student theater troupe, 33rd Street Productions, and performing in his first musical. As a way to meet other new students and get better acquainted with the 5 university, he became an Orientation leader, a role he held all four years. In his second year, Saha became a peer mentor to incoming students and entered into student government, and in his third year, he became the scholarship director of his fraternity and the president of the university’s chapter of Eta Kappa Nu, the electrical and computer science honor society. This year Saha was voted vice president of communications for the Student Government Association, served as a resident advisor, and was a founding member and the chair of the President’s Student Advisory Council. He rounded out his campus experience by appearing in a horror play and an improv skit. Who or what inspired Saha to make the very most of his university years? “During my time at Illinois Tech, my family was very supportive through all of my ups and downs,” says Saha, who won university awards for his commitment to the campus community.