Campus News

Barbara Pierce Bush, daughter of former President George W. Bush, will keynote Rockford University’s spring commencement ceremony Saturday, May 13.

Rockford University’s 163^rd graduation will be held at 2 p.m. at the Coronado Performing Arts Center, 314 N. Main St. in downtown Rockford. The University will award undergraduate and graduate degrees to approximately 352 students from 18 states and six countries.

Bush, 35, is co-founder and CEO of Global Health Corps, an organization focused on mobilizing a global community of young leaders to build the movement for health equity. Before joining GHC, she worked for the Smithsonian Institution’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, as well as at Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa, and interned for the United Nations Children’s Fund in Botswana.

Bush has traveled with the UN World Food Programme, is a member of UNICEF’s Next Generation Steering Committee, and is on the board of directors of Covenant House International, Population Services International, the UN’s Social Entrepreneurship Council, and Friends of the Global Fight for AIDS, TB and Malaria. She is a Draper Richards Foundation Social Entrepreneur, a World Economic Forum Young Global Shaper and a fellow of the Echoing Green Foundation. Bush graduated from Yale University with a degree in Humanities in 2004.

Tickets are required to attend the ceremony, and are limited to degree candidates and their guests. They will not be available at the door of the Coronado.

Rockford University is a four-year, co-educational institution founded in 1847 offering undergraduate and graduate degrees in traditional liberal arts and professional fields. The University offers approximately 80 majors, minors and concentrations, including the adult accelerated degree completion program for a B.S. in Management Studies. Through its Graduate Studies department, degrees are extended to include the Master of Business Administration (MBA), Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT), Master of Urban Education. Rockford University is home to one of only 11 Phi Beta Kappa (PBK) chapters in Illinois, the most prestigious honor society in the United States. Rockford University is also named by The Princeton Review as a Best Midwestern College. Rockford University currently serves approximately 1,300 full-and part-time students.