Maryland House Speaker Adrienne Jones to Deliver Keynote Address for University of Baltimore Commencement Ceremony, Dec. 16
December 9, 2019
Contact: Office of Government and Public Affairs
Phone: 410.837.5739
A live webcast will start shortly before 1 p.m. ET. Click here to view it.
The University of Baltimore will host a Commencement ceremony for its graduate and undergraduate classes from the College of Public Affairs, the Merrick School of Business and the Yale Gordon College of Arts and Sciences on Monday, Dec. 16, at 1 p.m. in the Patricia and Arthur Modell Performing Arts Center at the Lyric, adjacent to the UB campus.
Maryland Speaker of the House Adrienne A. Jones, representative of the 10th Legislative District in Baltimore County, will provide a keynote address. UB President Kurt L. Schmoke will offer greetings and remarks to the graduating students and their guests, and also lead in the conferring of all degrees. He will be joined by Linda Gooden, representative of the University System of Maryland Board of Regents, who will offer greetings on behalf of the board. R. Thomas Crawford, MBA '91, chair of the University of Baltimore Foundation, will bring greetings from UB alumni. UB Provost Darlene Smith, B.S. '78, MBA '80, will conduct the ceremonial turning of the tassels.
A native of Cowdensville, Md., Jones was appointed delegate in 1997, and was elected Speaker of the House of Delegates last May. She is the recipient of the 2019 Casper R. Taylor, Jr. Founder's Award, the highest award given to a member of the House of Delegates, in recognition of her public service. She has been named to the Daily Record's Top 100 Women in Maryland three times, and was inducted into the newspaper's Circle of Excellence for Sustained Achievement. Most recently she was selected, along with 25 female legislators, for Governing Magazine's Women in Government Leadership Program Class of 2016. She served for more than 37 years as the first executive director of the Baltimore County Office of Fair Practices and Community Affairs, and also as deputy director of the Baltimore County Office of Human Resources until her retirement in 2014. Jones is the founder of the annual Baltimore County African American Cultural Festival, now in its 21st year. She holds a B.A. in psychology from UMBC.
Momina Butt, who will receive a Bachelor of Science degree in business administration with a specialization in accounting, will deliver a talk as official representative of the undergraduate class. A first-generation college student and a member of Sigma Nu Tau and Beta Alpha Psi and a graduate of the University's Helen P. Denit Honors Program, Butt served as a senator on the Student Government Association and as the treasurer of the Beta Alpha Psi executive board. She plans to continue in UB’s MBA program next year.
Logan Hayes, who will receive her MBA during the event, has completed UB's MBA/J.D. Dual-Degree program. She will speak as the official representative of the graduate class. She earned a B.A. in international relations while minoring in French and legal studies at the University of Delaware. In law school, she was president of the National Trial Competition Team, comments editor for the Journal of International Law, and Rule 19 student attorney with the Veterans Advocacy Clinic. She is a member of several honors societies, including Omicron Delta Kappa, Sigma Nu Tau, and Beta Gamma Sigma. Hayes currently works as a law clerk for the Hon. Paul W. Ishak in the Circuit Court of Harford County, and plans to begin working as a full-time attorney next year.
Additional information about Commencement is available at www.ubalt.edu/commencement.
The University of Baltimore is a member of the University System of Maryland and comprises the College of Public Affairs, the Merrick School of Business, the UB School of Law and the Yale Gordon College of Arts and Sciences.