Published: Dec. 10, 2001

The University of Colorado at Boulder will confer 1,898 degrees on Friday, Dec. 21, during university commencement ceremonies at the Coors Events/Conference Center.

The commencement ceremony will begin at 9:30 a.m. and last about an hour. Guests are expected to be in their seats by 9:10 a.m. and early arrival is strongly suggested due to possible traffic delays. The ceremony is free and open to the public and no tickets are required.

Guests also are asked not to bring large purses or bags to the ceremony, and guests entering the events/conference center may be subject to search.

CU-Boulder will award 1,418 bachelor's degrees, 354 master's degrees, 122 doctoral degrees and four law degrees. The College of Arts and Sciences will lead the bachelor's degree count with 912 degrees, followed by Business with 245, Engineering with 125, Journalism with 70, Architecture and Planning with 43 and Music with 23. The Graduate School will award 456 degrees and the Business Graduate School 20 degrees.

CU-Boulder Distinguished Professor Richard McIntosh will give the commencement address. McIntosh is a professor in the molecular, cellular and developmental biology department. He studies the mechanisms of chromosome movement within cells, including identifying molecules that are important for cell division.

The MCD biology department recently acquired two new state-of-the-art electron microscopes to be used in the Laboratory for Three-Dimensional Cell Structure, which is directed by McIntosh. The new microscopes and the exceptionally powerful personal computers that support them have provided McIntosh and other researchers with three-dimensional images of cellular structures that have never been seen before.

McIntosh has been a Guggenheim Fellow and American Cancer Society Scholar, the president of the American Society for Cell Biology, and is now a research professor of the American Cancer Society and a member of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He also is one of only 18 CU-Boulder faculty members holding the title of distinguished professor.

Free parking for guests will be available in the Regent Drive Autopark (lot 436 on Regent Drive), and other lots near the Coors Events/Conference Center, and all campus parking meters. The meters along Regent Drive and lots 430 and 440 north of the Events/Conference Center will be reserved for elderly and disabled guests. Access to lot 420, on the north side of the events center, will be available for close-in drop-off only. Courtesy wheelchairs will be available for those who have difficulty walking from the drop-off area in lot 420 to their seats.

Additional information about commencement, including campus and area maps, is available on the Web at .