Jeb Bush to speak at commencement
Posted on: November 25, 2014; Updated on: November 25, 2014
By Megan Sexton, MSEXTON@mailbox.sc.edu
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush will speak at the University of South Carolina’s winter commencement exercises Dec. 15.
The 3:30 p.m. ceremony for baccalaureate, master’s and professional-degree recipients from all eight campuses will be in the Colonial Life Arena.
Bush will receive an honorary degree of doctor of public service at the commencement ceremony. Ned Siegel, former ambassador to the Bahamas, will receive the honorary degree of doctor of business administration.
The doctoral hooding ceremony will be at 1:30 p.m. at the Koger Center for the Arts. Brian Johnson, president of Tuskegee University, will be the speaker.
The university expects to award 1,949 degrees from the Columbia campus. Also receiving degrees at the December ceremony will be approximately 802 graduates of USC Aiken, USC Beaufort, USC Lancaster, USC Salkehatchie, USC Sumter, USC Union and USC Upstate.
Bush will be the fourth member of his family to be honored at a Carolina commencement ceremony. His father, President George H.W. Bush, addressed graduates and received an honorary degree of doctor of laws in May 1990. At that same ceremony, Jeb Bush’s mother, Barbara Bush, received an honorary doctor of education degree. President George W. Bush, Jeb Bush’s older brother, spoke and received an honorary degree of doctor of laws at the May 2003 commencement.
Jeb Bush was elected governor of Florida in 1998 and 2002, becoming the state’s first two-term Republican governor. As governor, he was credited with contributing to economic, environmental and health care improvements and an overhaul of Florida’s education system.
With his sister Dorothy Bush Koch, Jeb Bush is co-chair of the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy. His think-tank institute, the Foundation for Excellence in Education focuses on advancing policies that will maximize every student’s potential for learning and prepare all students for success in the 21st century.
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